


Death and the Maiden

by CynaraM



Category: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cabal has feelings, F/M, Happy Ending, Humor, Leonie has abandonment issues, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Romance, Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:53:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 69,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynaraM/pseuds/CynaraM
Summary: A Leonie/Johannes romance.





	1. Prologue: to the house

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the long, self-indulgent note. Skip down to the story if you like! You won’t miss much.
> 
> 1\. When I started looking for Cabal fanfic, I wanted a Leonie/Cabal story, but there weren’t any, at least not the exact one I was looking for. It would have been at least 10k words, romantic, sexy, in the canon universe, and in character. I started to wonder if I could write fanfic - and I did. I started with a pure pastiche and worked my way through a series of shorts - but I sure as hell didn’t feel like I could write that story. “Cabal’s in love with Her,’ I thought. “And Leonie’s far too smart to get involved with a hot mess like Cabal. He’s a perambulating emotional disaster.” I wasn’t wrong. 
> 
> 2\. And I’ve always loved Terrifically Intense Platonic Love. So I wrote 150,000 words about that, and called it “Friendship is Unnecessary” (FiU). 
> 
> 3\. I also had great fun writing filthy little Leonie/Cabal one-shots as palate cleansers when I just could not for the life of me figure out how the hell I was going to get them into or out of trouble in FiU, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around anything romantic, not without Cabal dissolving into wails and angst etc. etc. 
> 
> 4\. I can see my Leonie & Cabal after FiU - they have long, adventurous lives, maybe the ones they had planned, maybe not. But in the end, I always see them elderly, in adjacent rocking chairs, arguing about whose fault it is that Cabal has an ache in his shoulder. Cabal says it’s Leonie’s fault. Leonie says it was the gug’s. They’ve never found anyone they liked more than each other. Leonie’s chess game is slipping as her short-term memory becomes uneven, but Cabal (ancient and terrifyingly sharp: one pities the cowed creatures who wait on him and Leonie) has never once let on that he notices. They love each other, unconditionally and unromantically, and I love them. 
> 
> 5\. But. An alternative - a sort of canon divergence from my canon divergence - began to take shape. Dimly. The characters were developing in my story, and I was starting to see a middle ground between them. A way to write that romance. Bemused, I wrote something down, entitling it ’Project Where the F*** Did This Come From’ (later, Project WtFDTCF, and then Project Whatsit for brevity’s sake) and before I knew it I had… this. Most of it. 
> 
> But, obviously, it wasn’t going to be that simple. Ha ha. Not even a little bit. I am not apologizing for the horrible things that have happened to them; I enjoyed every moment of it, and honestly I'm only sorry I couldn't make it worse. I’m too soft on these kids.
> 
> 6\. I don’t know if this is the story I wanted to read, but it’s my best shot. Enjoy, dear readers.
> 
> P.S. Large stretches of this story were complete before the release of The Fall of the House of Cabal, so for the most part, it doesn't take into account the developments therein.
> 
> And so, with no more delay....
> 
> ***  
> ***

_You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel._  
     _You will go on, and when you have prevailed_  
     _You can say: at this point many a one has failed._

_T. S. Eliot_

Leonie Barrow walked the long road from the village to the remote house on the valley-side.   

He had gone off somewhere without mentioning it, and she would spend her morning shouting at an empty house. She knew it. Even if he had only been neglecting his correspondence, she reminded herself, he would be walled up in his lab, and she would have to wait for hours before he surfaced.  Even if he came to the door, he would send her back to the train station without a cup of tea for the cheek of showing up uninvited.  She had never come here without an express invitation. But she was tired of wondering where the hell he was.  

The village had let her through without comment.  She hadn’t seen Parkin or she might have spared herself the walk.

The road seemed shorter than usual.  Before she was ready she was at the hill that would reveal Cabal's valley.  He was in the middle of some experiment. He would filet her for interrupting him, if she could get his attention without going through the garden.  At least she would know.  The road seemed very short.   She mounted the hill.  

And her legs gave out under her, on the stony road. The house was gone.  Not transported away by whatever process had brought it here, but blasted across the hillside as stones and bits of rubbish. The cellar was a blackened socket in the hill, half-filled with wreckage.

She walked to the hole where Cabal's house had stood.  The destruction was not absolute; she recognized scraps of upholstery on a shattered piece of furniture.  Loose pages had felted down into a thick mat: English, German, French, nothing obscure or dangerous.  She didn't think the townspeople had been out to scavenge: very wise. 

A feeling of unreality took her as she circled the destruction.  The sun shone, the birds sang, a breeze brushed through her hair.  Her boots squished into the damp turf.  It was like looking at a picture of a disaster, not the disaster itself.   

But what about Cabal?  This place had been his laboratory, his stronghold, his vault.  How could this have happened?  Surely if he had been here, he would have died defending it.  She looked at the burned things in the pit. Could his body be in there, pecked by the birds or consumed to ash?  Even a broken skull wouldn't tell her much; heaven knew there were plenty of reasons for there to be mortal remains here, and they needn’t be his. 

She circled the wreck, the insulating minute of shock melting away, giving way to fear. There was one thing she could check that might tell her about his fate.  She oriented herself.  Her guess at the site of the kitchen was confirmed by splintered black and white tile.  There was enough of the cellar stairs left that she could use them to descend, with some care.  Bless good stone and English craftsmanship, she thought, but it was careful work.  Mud had trickled over the stone, and the blocks weren’t firmly mortared anymore, as if they had been tossed in the air and banged down to shatter in place.  She dislodged a blackened object as she descended. It looked like another cinder, but it made a ‘ting’ sound as it rolled from step to step. It was a small metal skull with a cuff at its base.  That didn’t mean anything.  A walking stick was not its owner. 

From the foot of the steps she could see where Cabal's secret lab had stood, sunk into the hill.  The destruction was absolute. The force that obliterated the upper stories had come from below, maybe the boiler, she thought, but there must have been an explosive in the lab: she couldn't see anything from this angle but the rusted tangle of the winch.  She walked closer, skirting the tilting piles of wood, plaster, and stone. She was careful. Even a minor injury might trap her here until she died of thirst or exposure.

Now she could see the entirety of the lab. The benches that had been here, the bookshelves, the writing desk, and even, she groaned aloud, the deep, secret pit in the floor, all were obliterated by the disaster.  The huge paving stones themselves were tossed and piled by the blast, one tilting into the pit.  She searched for new theories, trying to find one that allowed for his survival.  If he had some warning… if he had been far away… or if he had been able to move her…  perhaps this was all some drastic ruse on Cabal’s part to cover his tracks. 

She picked her way out of the cellar through the tumbled blocks and the shards of timber.  The garden wall, even, was no more than piles of stone near the house, though it was almost intact near the road.  It was there, in the overgrown garden, that she found the low mound.  It was a heaped rectangular bed thick with the cornflowers and thistles that love disturbed earth.  It was unmarked, except by the blue and purple blossoms.  

Oh no. A sick shock ran through her. She tried to persuade herself that Cabal had buried an enemy here.  She couldn’t believe it.  Sawed up and burned, yes.  Left on a hillside, yes.  Fed to a passing gug, yes, certainly: but not interred in his little garden.  And it looked to her… it was hard to tell after all this time, but she thought the burial had been made before the explosion, not after.   

Whatever had happened here, Leonie thought she knew what must lie in the careful dimensions of the plot. Surely it was one of two bodies.  Whichever it was, Cabal or his lady, he was dead.  Perhaps his killer buried him here; perhaps he died in the blast; or perhaps, catlike, he had left to find his death alone.  

That was why he hadn't written after the last, brisk letter. The world tilted a little, and she sat down hard on a wet, charred beam. The dread she had been denying for months finally shook off its disguise, chuckled, and became the awful truth. She cried. Large, ugly sobs for the disaster that had been Johannes Cabal: his beloved, his work, his short, violent life.  The damp soaked through her coat, and she didn’t care. She cried for herself. That morning she hadn’t seen Cabal in ten months, hadn’t had a letter from him in six. But she hadn't felt alone until now. 

She left an hour or so later.  She had to catch the afternoon train.  She had thought about Cabal, the girl in the glass coffin, his idiotic, quixotic quest, and all the pain it had caused.  She had twisted a few wildflowers into a circle, which she left on the grave. As she walked through the garden, she picked up a piece of detritus from the ground, wrapped it in her handkerchief, and put it in her purse.  

She closed the gate behind her and heard the latch click shut on Herr Johannes Cabal, his house, his life, and any thought of seeing him again in this life - or, unless things went very differently than she expected, the next.  She wept again on the train and again in her rooms before sleep.


	2. Time passes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonie moves on

_Later_

Tom Soanes and Leonie danced twice after the village fete. He was tall and broad-shouldered; his brown hair had a bit of a curl to it, and he had a ready smile. He came from a few counties over, but he’d inherited a farm outside Penlow. She knew from their neighbours that he was a great favourite with Mary Smith, though the gossips held that he was looking for someone a bit steadier. From him, she learned that he liked Penlow, was slick at the one-step, and was easy to talk to. Despite the gossip, she thought he had his eye on Mary, who might not be steady, but who was lively, smart, and just as good a dancer as he. Leonie liked him. 

She didn’t see him again until dad got sick.

***

_Yet later_

Leonie walked out the kitchen door into the garden with her afternoon cup of tea. Frank Barrow’s bad night had turned into a bad day. The pain was keeping him awake, and he had needed help getting out of bed. 

There was a man in the garden. He was weeding one of the flower beds. She thought she recognized the hair. “Mr. Soanes?”

He looked up and smiled. “Miss Barrow. Your dad told me you would be coming back. He’ll have been happy to see you.” And he smiled again at the thought of her dad’s excitement. 

Leonie had been welcomed back with similar words from several neighbours, and she’d tried not to take them as veiled criticism. Not many women saw the need to pursue a doctorate. But she felt like Tom just meant what he said. “Is the farm so quiet you had to go looking for work elsewhere?”

Tom stood and dusted off his knees. He was quite tall. “Your dad hasn't been able to see to the garden since he got sick. I've come by after chores to tidy it up now and again.” 

Leonie was touched. It was a long way for him to come for such a small thing, at an hour when most men were looking forward to their tea. And he was right, it would mean a great deal to her father. He felt frustrated enough without seeing the garden go to ruin. “I hope he'll be out here again, soon. The doctor thinks he might be feeling better towards the autumn.” She had an impulse. “Could you stay? For dinner? I don't have anything fancy planned,’ she added hastily, mentally canvassing the pantry, “but I'm so grateful to you for doing this, and I'm sure dad would enjoy seeing you.”

“I can't. I've got a cow needs seeing to, and I'm meeting the vet back at the farm. But,’ he added with a hint of unexpected shyness, “I was thinking of coming back to deal with those raspberry canes on Friday.” He gestured to the prickly canes which were bent under the weight of the fruit.

“Wonderful! We’ll expect you. And bless you for doing it. ’ she looked around the garden. “I'm hopeless. Dad would make me pick berries when I was a girl, and I’d crush half and eat the rest. But I make a passable Swiss roll.”

That ready smile bloomed on his face. “Don’t mention sweets in front of a bachelor, Miss Barrow. You know we’re shameless. You’ll never get rid of us.”

Was he flirting? “Call me Leonie, please.” 

***

 

It was Walpurgisnacht, and Leonie sat by her fire with a book and a bottle.  She stayed home alone every year on this night.  Perhaps it was an odd time to commemorate Johannes Cabal, but she thought it was appropriate. And it was hard to get weepy about his sainted memory on what she still thought of as carnival night.   She raised a glass of wine - a nice Alsatian gewurtztraminer she’d bought in London and thought he'd have approved - towards a blackened chess piece on the mantel.   

She didn’t know what to say, but she wanted to say something.  You were a decent man? I hope you’re with Her? ”Thank you, m'boy - for the rest of it. The not-horrible parts.  I miss you."

It was difficult, but not impossible, to shed a tear for Cabal on Walpurgisnacht. 

 

***

_Years later_

The kitchen was a part of Leonie; she had been preparing meals in it since she was a girl.  Drawers opened at a touch, her hands reached inside without looking, and they fell on the implements they wanted.  She could tell the oven had reached heat by the click of the expanding parts, and she could smell the moment it overheated.   

She had lived in the cottage her whole life. It had a modest parlour to one side of the front hall, and a dining room on the other. Stairs went up to the first floor, and a kitchen and pantry stretched along the back. The garden was large for a house of its size, and one kitchen window looked over it to the street. Leonie glanced through it as she worked, if she was expecting a visitor.

Tom often arrived around five, pink from the fields and freshly washed.  They ate dinner and talked about the work he was doing on his farm, or a course she might teach in the autumn.  They did the washing up, and they took an evening bicycle ride.  The neighbours waved at them and smiled.  They would pretend not to notice that Leonie's bicycle did not reappear by her house until the next morning.  

There is a great kindness to playing blind in a small town.  Less frequently, Tom would leave Leonie's house in the dark hours of the morning, going home for chores.  No-one saw that, either, though the milkman was often out, and insomniac gentlemen were sometimes on a predawn constitutional.  The pair showed no signs of marrying, but the villagers knew, by and large, how to mind their own business.  Leonie was beloved there, and if she wanted to keep steady company with Tom for a few years before marriage, well, dear old Frank Barrow would be a difficult act to follow for any man.  Four years wasn't too long to grieve for a father like him. 

She was preparing dinner for Tom now.  He had been repairing a barn that afternoon, so he would be tired but satisfied.  She could probably look forward to prying splinters out of his hands after dinner.  

People walked down the street every few minutes outside: businessmen and shopkeepers home from work, housekeepers hurrying home with the shopping, schoolchildren who had gone rambling over the fields, now uncomfortably conscious of the evening drawing on and dinner almost on the table.  She often looked out the window while she waited for a sauce to thicken or water to boil.  She knew most of the passers-by, but a few were strangers.   

She vaguely recognised a dressed-up young woman who walked along reading house numbers.  A first dinner with her young man’s family?  Maybe the Wilson boy.  That older woman, surely she was a relative of the neighbours across the way; she looked startlingly like the father.  There was someone farther up the block, too, striding down the street.  Tom?  Since the time a nibbly escape-artist of a mare ate half her garden, he usually bicycled instead of riding, but if the weather was fine or he’d had a flat tyre he might walk. She checked the beans steaming on the stove, then glanced back.

It wasn’t Tom; the man was slimmer and dressed in unrelieved black.  He wore a black flat cap and a long coat.  She sighed.  It didn’t take much to remind her of Cabal.  She put the rolls in the oven and looked again; it would only take a few seconds to prove it wasn’t him: black hair, a stranger’s walk, a dog leash, a loud scarf, there was always something. She had changed trams in London once, years ago, to get a better look at a black-suited man with a gladstone bag.  He had high cheekbones, and he stood as if the entire tram system was a personal insult to his dignity, and it had made a pang run through her stomach. When she had finally glimpsed his full face it was not Cabal.  Just a prat in a coat.  

Funny: the man coming down the street even walked like him. She had looked for that walk in crowds long after her habit irritated her. He was gone, probably dead.  If he was alive, he certainly hadn’t shown much interest in her. And if he was alive, why hadn't he sent word? 

God, it looked like him; it certainly wasn’t anyone from this part of Penlow.  It must be a city inspector.  A neighbour’s dinner guest.  An undertaker replying to a late call.  She leaned close to the window in spite of herself.  It needed cleaning.  The stranger was carrying a bag. But no stick. She was burning her sauce.  She cursed and took it from the stove.  She hastened back to the window, feeling like an idiot for doing it, but the stranger had passed behind a neighbour’s hedge.  

She hated this feeling.  It always ended the same way. She would feel foolish and unhappy, and she was not either.  She had a good life, and she liked it.  But it only took one black-suited bastard to push her back six years, beside an overgrown grave in Cabal’s garden. 

She shook her head. She had to move on. She was never going to get an answer, unless she had the grave exhumed, and she was reluctant to do that, even now. 

She disciplined her thoughts. She thought about the coming autumn, the cool nights that were already turning the leaves and making her think about the fuel order for the winter. And in the winter, she would see Tom more, not just for the occasional dinner or snatched night when he was almost too tired to move. But she enjoyed this time of year too, when he was busy with the harvest and she had time to read and write and walk alone.

The doorbell rang, and her hands fisted in her apron before her brain had registered the sound. Something in her knew, even as she denied it. 

She shook herself and left the kitchen. It felt like she was walking underwater. The door was flanked by narrow glass sidelights, which had enough transparency between the frosting to show bits and patches of anyone on the step. The light outside was still strong. She could see blond hair, black clothing, a gloved hand clenched around the handle of a bag. She felt a chill that was as much pain as anything else. He shifted, and she saw the shape of his ear. And as she watched, his thumb tapped the handle in a restless gesture, and she knew, she knew.


	3. Dinner and conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonie invites Cabal in; dinner follows.

Leonie was suspended in the hallway, halfway between the kitchen and the door, halfway between the past and the thing that was about to happen. She couldn’t feel what she was supposed to. 

When she was ten she had wished and wished for her birthday. When the day had come, everything had felt forced and odd, like she had squeezed all the juice out of it by wanting it so hard. And then, the half-understood agony of waiting for her mother to die had been sharper than the emptiness of the death itself. 

She had imagined a thousand times what she would do, what she would say if he came back. She would rush to the door, drag him inside, kiss his stupid face, shake him until his head snapped back and forth, and force him to tell her everything.  Absolutely everything. And he would have some wonderful reason that she could never quite imagine.

Instead, she removed her apron, folded it, and placed it on the hall table. She smoothed her hair. Breathe, she told herself.  Don't kill him until you have a plan for disposing of the body.  Don't let the bastard see you cry.   She opened the door. He stood there, wearing his blue glasses against the glare of the low sun. She felt the same unreality as beside his wrecked house. " _Fraulein_ Barrow."  He extended a black-gloved hand. She felt something: a hot spark of pain. 

Her look raked him from head to toe.  "You’ll have to sit in the kitchen, I’m cooking.”  And she turned her back on him and walked to the kitchen, curls bouncing with each sharp step. 

***

Cabal sat at the breakfast table. Leonie put her apron on with trembling hands She wanted to look unconcerned, to match his self-possession. She went back to cooking. 

He cleared his throat. “So. You are well?”

“Very well. Never better.” _Why the sudden interest?_ , she hissed at him in her head.

Cabal seemed at a loss for further conversation, and she didn't help. 

She wiped her hands on her apron, surveyed the kitchen, noticed the pots on the stovetop, cursed, and grabbed up a potholder. She thought she was doing very well: cool and collected.  Except the beans had been cooking for fifteen minutes. They had turned grey. 

“And your father?”

She was half-distracted, half-angry. “He's dead.” She shocked the beans with cold water.

“…I’m sorry.”

“It's been years.’ She banged the pot down on the counter briskly. “And longer than that since I've heard a word from you.’ She stopped fighting it. “I saw your house smashed like an egg. There was a grave in the garden, Cabal. I thought you were dead.  I grieved.  I actually prayed for your misbegotten soul, you… you skunk.”

His forehead wrinkled.  "I would rather you did not…" 

"I really, really wouldn't be concerned about it happening a second time. Why are you here?  Do you need something?" 

He looked away. “I had reasons for not contacting you. I apologise.”  

“Reasons." Oh, he had reasons, she thought. Well then. But where would she put the body? Mind you, Tom could find a spot on the farm.

“Compelling reasons.”  He lit a thin cigar without asking. He seemed surprised to find that he was still wearing his glasses, hat, and gloves: he removed them. His hands moved slowly packing the cigarette case and matches away, and he did not meet her eyes.  “I do need something.  But not for me.  For Horst." 

“For Horst,” she echoed idiotically.  She should tell him to go, to never come back, to take his silences and sudden demands and insert them firmly up his fundament.  But she couldn’t. It was dawning on her; this wasn’t his fault, in a strange way.

She had forgotten, she supposed. It was only natural to romanticise someone when you thought they were gone, and she had chosen to forget how brutal his insensitivity could be. Maybe he didn't even know I would miss him, she wondered. Maybe she’d had a callus in the old days, something thick and hard built up out of use and constant disappointment. Were her fond memories anything but wishful thinking? Because today, the gap between what she wanted Cabal to be and his awful behaviour threatened to swallow their friendship yet again.

Cabal wasn't smoking his cigar, but he wasn’t talking, either. She emptied a mass of something wet and flexible out of a saucepan and started tailing beans at the counter. She broke the silence this time. "So.  What have you been doing?" 

"Travelling.  Some biochemical work at the university in Poloruss. Guest lectures at the University of Prague. I was caught up in some business with vampires in Turkey." 

"Speaking of vampires.”

“Horst is well.’ He shrugged. “Fairly well.”

“That doesn't sound good. What are you doing for him?”

“Trying to find a cure.”

“Really. That never seemed quite as pressing, back then.” 

For him, she’d meant, but he didn’t notice. “The years pass. Those around him age. It can't wait forever.” 

Yes, she wanted to say, the years do pass, don't they. But she had always been fond of Horst. “What does he need?”

“Have you heard of….”

Leonie held up a hand. “No, wait, never mind. I’m not ready for that part yet. And I haven’t decided to help.”

Again Cabal did not rise to the bait, and his silence was worrying her. Why was he sitting there like a lump?  Wouldn't he even fight with her? Dear god, maybe he was dying. 

She put the new pot of beans on the stove and looked at him. He was stronger, as if he’d been living better. His back was straighter, and he wasn’t as pale as he used to be. There were a few lines at the corners of his eyes. They made her heart clutch strangely. 

A hint of irritation coloured his expression. “The livestock auction is next week, if you’re thinking of putting in a bid. Slightly used necromancers are going on the block at ten, I think.”

She was startled into a smile, and for an instant the years vanished, and he was picking her up for some bizarre escapade. The train would take them to Outer Tidmoot, where they would chase something not quite dead around a barrow for a few hours and come out with a sprained ankle, some damn thing Cabal had wanted, and a new recipe for tinned-things-with-biscuit. Those had been, Leonie was well aware, the best years of her life. 

And then a wave of pain hit her square in the gut, and it took her breath away. He had been alive. He had been just fine, her dear old buddy Johannes, and he had never told her, not a word. She almost burst into tears right there, face-to-face with him in the kitchen. But she wouldn't. She wasn't twenty-five anymore, and her feelings weren't his business. She held it in. She focussed on the practical. “Will it take long, this thing?”

He shrugged again. “A few days, maybe.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“Probably not.’ Her brow creased. “Maybe?” he offered.

She needed to know why he had left. She wanted to know where he had been. She was bloody well going to learn why he hadn't contacted her. “Fine. For auld lang syne, then. You can stay." 

He nodded.  "Thank you." They both knew why he couldn’t stay at the inn. 

"Tom will be here any minute, and then we'll eat." 

"Tom?" 

"A friend of mine.  He has a farm just out of town.  He may not be thrilled to have a third tonight, but leave him alone." 

Cabal just looked blankly at her as if he didn't understand.  

***

Leonie saw Cabal’s assess Tom, then dismiss him. Tom greeted him with real interest; he hadn’t met many of Leonie’s friends from outside Penlow. Leonie realised she hadn’t had anyone over to dinner in ages; her circle had always been small, but it had contracted since her father died. 

She introduced them, and Tom extended a brown, scarred hand. They were about of a height, but Tom’s breadth of shoulder made Cabal look slight by comparison. “Glad to meet one of Kitty's friends, Mr. Frank.”

Had Cabal winced at the pet name? “Mr. Soanes,” he acknowledged. Tom waited for some further comment, but none came. 

“I haven't met many of Kitty's friends. Where do you know each other from?”

“Through her father.” And then nothing. Cabal’s eyes slipped from Tom to the wall, as if the farmer was a wind-up toy that had just performed its trick. He sat and picked up a newspaper. Tom glanced doubtfully at Leonie, shrugged minutely, and went to the icebox for a bottle of beer. 

Cabal was startled when, a bare second later, Leonie swatted the paper out of his hand. He looked up to find himself inches from his furious host. “You are the rudest person I have ever met. What the hell is wrong with you? How _dare_ you treat Tom like that in my home?’ She spoke in a furious undertone. “You are here on sufferance. Don't forget that, you fish-faced son of a bitch.” She had a finger raised to Cabal’s face.

“What on earth are you talking about? I observed the civilities. Do you expect me to _chat_?” He said it as if the infinitive had been ’kayak’ or ’lactate’.

“No, but you can do better than….” Leonie knew she had started on a faulty line of attack and returned to basics. “Be polite. Ask him questions about his farm. Pretend to listen, convincingly. Or pack your bag and go.”

Cabal wrestled with himself for a moment, then gave one curt nod.

“And don’t make me tell you again. I’m not your mother.”

They were seated around the dining table, when Cabal, teeth gritted, complied. “So. Miss Barrow tells me you own a… farm.’ He said the word as if it was wrung from him. And then, like a man going to the gallows, bidding farewell to all he had once found beautiful and good: “tell me about it.”

Tom’s smile was not entirely innocent. “Indeed I do, Mr. Frank. You know, what not many people appreciate about farming is that….” The following lecture touched briefly on Tom’s philosophy of farming, unusual weather patterns characteristic of the Penlow area, amusing local terminology for the illnesses of cows, and the hay harvest. 

Cabal’s composure began to fray somewhere in the first five minutes. By the time Tom had informed him that a cow’s teats were called ‘quarters’ where he’d grown up, Leonie could see signs of strain. By the time Tom had worked his way around to discussing hay varietals, there was faint twitch at the corner of his eye, and his occasional interjections of “indeed,” had become fainter. 

“But that’s me blathering on about my work. Kitty will tell you what a menace I am when I get going.” 

Cabal dared one hunted glance at Leonie, but her eyes were as implacable as death. “Not,’ he muttered, “at all.”

Tom had enjoyed himself splendidly, but he wasn’t entirely without pity. “So,’ he asked. “What d’ye do in London?” 

Leonie braced herself for rudeness or, worse, the truth. “I am a scientist specialising in certain degenerative conditions. The salt, please.” She raised her eyebrows in surprise, only to be met with a bland expression from Cabal. Fine. He was making an effort.  Well, so he damn well should. He returned to silence and sipped at a glass of ale; she didn't have wine in the house. 

Dinner had suffered from Cabal's arrival.  Not only had the sauce burned and the rolls dried into brittle rusks, but the cutlets bore signs of having been two reapportioned for three. The second pot of beans was fine, at least. Cabal was nearly silent. Leonie was confused and distracted. Tom must have noticed the atmosphere wasn’t convivial, and he had been considering something. “I got to know Mr. Barrow pretty well in his last year. He was a good man, a kind one.”

Cabal replied, not looking up from his desiccated roll. “He was most capable.”

“He never mentioned you, though: and nor has Kitty.” 

Leonie jumped in. “Mr. Frank was working abroad when we met. I haven't seen him in ages.” And if she slipped a little chill into the final words, well, who could blame her.

Tom smiled politely. “So, this is by way of being a reunion, then.”

Neither of them had anything to say to that.

Still, largely thanks to Tom’s cheerful one-sided discussion of the cool summer they’d been having, they made it through the entree without a total breakdown of the niceties. Leonie called off the pudding course in the name of getting Tom home as soon as possible. 

***

With dinner over, Leonie began to relax as she and Tom washed up. But he wasn’t ready to let go of the question that had formed in his mind. "How do you know him, really?” 

“He wasn’t lying; he's an old family friend, sort of.  He’ll be staying here for the next little while.”

“Staying with you? Really.’ He didn’t seem pleased, but he didn’t say anything directly. “He's an odd one, isn't he, Kitty?” 

"He's seen some strange things.  I'll see he minds his manners around you, but don't antagonize him, Tom, all right?"  

"I promise not to invite your queer German friend outside for a brawl." He pecked her cheek on his way to the silverware drawer.

She smiled, but she didn't really seem to find it funny.  “Good. He doesn’t fight fair.” 

“Were you and he ever….”

“Me and, and Mr. Frank? No! Believe me, no.’ She snorted. “How lurid, Tom.”

He smiled. “Air seemed a bit heavy over dinner.”

Tom’s easy smile and broad shoulders and his farmer’s life made some people think he was simple, but Leonie knew better. Usually, she admired his quick perception. “Not for that reason. Oh, leave it, Tom; we’ll sort it out or we won't, and then he'll go.”

He put his arms around her. “I suppose you won't be visiting me for the next few days?"  Overnight, he meant. 

She raised one shoulder “I hadn't thought about it, but I might.  He’s not what you’d call a slave to convention.  Not tonight, though." And she put her hand on Tom’s cheek.

And just then Cabal stepped into the kitchen. Faced with this affectionate tableau, his mouth opened slightly, and he retreated a step; Leonie froze for a moment. The phrase, “a compromising position” floated into her mind. She didn’t know why she was being so shy around Cabal, of all people. She half-stepped out of Tom’s embrace, leaving one arm around him. “Coffee?” she offered.

Cabal had shut his mouth. “No. Pardon me.  I believe I will smoke in the garden.” Tom looked smug.

***

The garden was in full late summer flower. Cabal was a shadow by the roses. 

Among other things, he considered this Tom Soanes. A broad, strong-looking man with an air of competence. There was an acuity to his eyes as they had flicked over Leonie's guest that disagreed with one's preconceptions about rustic ploughmen and sons of the soil. Cabal decided he didn't like him. It was less than half an hour later when Tom passed him on the way out with a “good night” thrown over his shoulder. 

Cabal’s cigar had gone out. He cleared his throat. “You’re leaving early.”

“I’ve the morning’s chores to think of. Enjoy your stay in Penlow, Mr. Frank.” 

“But don’t stay too long,” murmured Cabal to himself, watching Tom’s retreating back.

He returned to find Leonie, kitchen chores finished, sitting by the cold fireplace. Cabal felt a small tension go out of his shoulders. He took the other chair. The night was cool for September. They could have a fire. He leaned back in the chair and extended his legs towards the hearth. "Miss Barrow - it is still Miss Barrow, is it not? The time has come for me to tell you why I left England." 

"Has it,’ she said crisply.  “Well, I hope the time will come again soon, because I have some reading to do, and then I'm going to retire for the night." 

"Oh." He pulled himself to a more erect sitting position, and then to his feet. 

"Let me show you to your room, and then you can come back down and tell the china dogs all about it, if you like.” She led the way to the stairs. Leonie Barrow seemed to enjoy walking away from him, these days.


	4. Leonie listens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stop that. She was losing her bloody mind. This was Cabal.

She had redecorated her old bedroom for guests. Dad would have scolded her if she'd preserved his as the Frank Barrow Memorial Bedroom, so she’d packed up or given away his things and moved in within a week of his death.  Showing Cabal into the pleasant, impersonal room that used to be hers felt like offering a chintz cushion to a leopard.  She took the glass chimney from the bedside lamp to light it.    

"It is good to see you again," he said abruptly.  The light from the hallway silhouetted him: a slim faceless figure in black, picked out by the white of his shirtfront and the gilt of his hair.   

She sighed. She moved past him without comment. She closed the door to the master bedroom behind herself.  

She had enjoyed cutting off Cabal's pompous little speech downstairs, but now she regretted it.  Why was he here? She did have reading to do for work, but it wasn't actually pressing. The Journal of the British Criminological Society drooped onto her lap, and she leaned back in her reading chair. 

Did it matter why?  Yes, it did. She was slowly assimilating the knowledge that he had left her without a word of farewell or reassurance.  Cabal had never been notable for his warmth, but in their own odd way they had been friends.  She could have sworn there had been mutual trust, and even a sort of affection. 

And yet - Johannes Cabal was warm and living and enraging his fellow-citizens as ever.  That was a reassurance. 

She could hear him moving in his room: the floor creaking under his steps from wardrobe to bureau, the little scrape of a drawer closing. The old house had thin walls. Her mother had liked to tell the story of the visiting priest who had answered a midnight sneeze from the master bedroom with a clearly audible “God bless you” from the guest room.  

She heard a rustle of cloth.  The swish of his coat, the tap of a hanger against the back of the wardrobe.  More steps, and then wood creaked, and a picture came into her head: Cabal, the white of his shirtsleeves against the black of his vest, slouched back in the chair.  The lamplight would glint from the tips of his blond hair. What expression did he have on his face?  Never mind that.  She turned back to her journal.

She heard the chair creak and a sursurrus of movement.  A pair of clicks.  Cufflinks?  He was unpacking.  No. Her face heated.  He was undressing.  Something small toppled, and he righted it and cursed quietly. He must be by the wardrobe, unbuttoning.  

It was awkward, hearing him strip for bed. This heating of her face had to be awkwardness, because this was Cabal. Although he was not objectively unattractive, he was not the type of man who attracted her. She liked sunny, well-disposed men who were alive to the sensual possibilities of life. She smiled: Cabal felt uncomfortable with his cravat undone. She'd seen him adjust it when he should have been putting pressure on a bleeding wound. Once, she'd said he was the sort of man who ate a peach with a knife and fork. 

And yet. Unbidden, her mind filled in the details as he moved about the room, disrobing.  She should stop listening. She should leave her room or perhaps cover the sounds.  She knew the sharp clicks followed by a clunk, and a lighter tap of metal meeting wood. They were the sounds of Cabal checking his gun and knife before sleep. But then, quieter noises: unfamiliar whispers of fabric on skin, a quiet grunt and a yawn. Her face and chest felt hot; this was far too intimate for comfort. She heard the floorboard creak and knew he was in bed. 

She changed into her nightgown quickly, self-conscious and wondering if he could hear as well as she.  Wardrobe, hamper, drawer, bed.  She extinguished the bedside lamp and sighed.  Not twenty feet and a little lath and plaster away, the man himself lay under her roof.  She had slept much closer to him than this, often on a stone floor. But he was almost a stranger now, wasn’t he? He was made strange by time and by his silence.

Apropos of nothing, her memory volunteered the information that one or two incidents in the past had suggested that he did not wear pyjamas.  Cabal was nude - no, naked - under her roof. Why was that of the slightest interest?  Why was it so distracting an idea, almost compelling? The moonlight falling on his bare throat and shoulder…. Stop that. She was losing her bloody mind. She laughed at herself. This was Cabal.

There were many reasons she had never allowed herself to be attracted to Cabal, had never promoted a greater intimacy than simple, loyal friendship allowed. They ascended from "long distance relationships never work" to "he is in love with the dead young lady in his lab.” Judging by the way events had unfolded, she had made the right decision; it had been bad enough as it was. 

But. She wondered what would happen if she went to him now: just walked into his room, whipped the bedclothes off him, and.... Well, something.  An image of Cabal, nude, wide-eyed from shock and outrage, fighting her for the sheet, made her giggle.  She clapped a hand over her mouth and cut the sound off with an awkward grunt.   

But imagine him, muscled thighs flailing and lean flanks half-exposed by the struggle. The idea held an appeal that wasn't entirely humorous. Or, alternatively, what if he decided it was beneath his dignity to fight, and lay back with a sardonic look, enquiring what she meant to do now? 

Her face was still warm. Probably with shame. The man was a guest under her roof, for heaven’s sake. 

Put to it, she thought he'd fight for the sheet.

***

The Barrow garage was a smart little outbuilding with a gravel drive. It was the only substantial change to the house or property Cabal had seen. “You have an automobile?”

“Yes.’ She smiled at the little roadster. “I bought it with some inheritance money when I started teaching at the university. Rather a lot of the inheritance money, actually, but it means I can live in Penlow most of the year. Scoot in, it’s unlocked.”

Cabal didn’t want to scoot, but it was difficult to enter the low-slung auto by any other means. Riding in the passenger seat, one felt mere inches from the ground. The cradling of the bucket seats around one’s hips was indecent.

Leonie strapped herself in. “I’ll drive us to a picnic spot; from there we can walk to the house without attracting attention. More or less.’ She flipped a few switches and engaged the ignition, sparing Cabal a glance. “Don't you own any tweed? You look like a bank manager visiting another bank manager about a funeral.” 

“No,’ Cabal articulated disdainfully. “I do not own any tweed.” And they were off. 

Leonie maintained a cautious speed in Penlow, with its elderly pedestrians and wayward dogs. Once in the country, however, she showed a tendency, like the poet, towards slipping the surly bonds of earth. Cabal was at first inclined to calculate ejection angles, but he calmed as he saw more of her driving. He began to enjoy the controlled speed, and by the time they reached the picnic spot he was as relaxed as he ever was. It was a good day; cool and grey, with a freshening breeze from the east. Leonie pulled off the road. 

“So, this thingy you want is in Aubrey House. You’re sure?”

“Nearly sure. I found an auction record.”

“What is it again?” 

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not as detailed as I expect your plans to be, Cabal.” The woods were cool, with muddy hollows from the recent rains.

“I won’t have a plan until I have seen the house. Do you know it or its grounds?”

“Tom and I visited the gardens while we were courting, but I don't think I've ever been inside; the Aubreys were elderly even when I was a child, and they didn't mix with the town much, except for the vicar." 

They emerged from the wood onto a hill. To either side of them the land sloped down to a pretty vista of farms and fields. Directly ahead it was steep enough to be a small cliff, and it overlooked the Aubrey house.

“Strange the house wasn't built here, to command the view,” he said.

“I think it's something too do with the soil. Too sandy.”

“Moraines,” Cabal said absently.

Leonie ignored this geologic digression. “I hear it’s been bought by a young southern couple, so by next week they might have turned the library into a solarium or modern nursery or something. You may have arrived just in time. But they've taken on plenty of staff,’ she added charitably. “Some of them are starting Tuesday, when the family arrives, and some are already working on fixing the place up. It's been empty for a few years, with just Mr. and Mrs. MacLeod to keep it. I know the new housekeeper a little. That might be why I was invited to the harvest dance they’re having.”

Cabal perked up. “That might be useful.”

Leonie smiled wryly. “It's a bit Lord-of-the-manor if you ask me - inviting the happy crofters in for a treat - but I should give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they just want to be hospitable.”

“You could get us into the house openly on the night of the dance.”

“I could. If I hadn't already invited Tom. And no, I won't un-invite him for the sake of your plan. Anyway, what's wrong with sneaking in at night?” Leonie was starting to feel cheated out of an adventure. Then she rebuked herself. She was helping Cabal to steal something from her neighbours; it wasn’t supposed to be a pleasure jaunt. 

She hadn’t made him explain himself, that morning. She almost asked him now. Cabal, she thought, where the hell have you been, and why didn’t you write. She had good reasons not to ask: they had other business, and this was too public a setting to allow her to yell at Cabal. But she was also afraid. 

She could have forced him to tell her. She could have said she wouldn't help until he did. But what if his explanation wasn’t one she wanted to hear? That he hadn't thought it mattered, or that he had been busy with more important things. 

Cabal had been talking. “….it's just not an end in itself. It would be easier to explain our presence if we were found there during a social event, as opposed to alone at three in the morning on a Monday. Wait; there is someone down there.”

“People from the village walk along here all the time.  It's no matter, as long as we leave the birds alone and don't build a fire or something.  Tom and I brought a picnic once.” 

"How pastoral."

"It’s a sheep field, Cabal.  So you must have a theory about this thing Horst needs, though you don't know what it is?" 

“Written material.” 

"A little light reading?" 

"An occult text." 

"And you're sticking to your story that this is for Horst?  He doesn't read anything more occult than Wilkie Collins.  If I find out you are using my fondness for your brother to manipulate me, Cabal, I really think I might never talk to you again." She tried to keep her tone light.

"It absolutely is for Horst.’ He sounded nettled. “How fond are you of him, anyway?" 

“I'm not sure I'm very fond of him after all. I suppose he knew you were alive? Why didn’t I hear from him?“

“The object is probably a manuscript. It's hidden within a book.” He was suddenly happy to discuss his errand, she thought. He explained further as they took the path through the wood from the car. “The object was from the collection of an Honoré Richard, an amateur of vampiric folklore. When his collection was dispersed upon his death fifty-two years ago, the occult materials were stolen by a member of his family; that collection has never resurfaced. The remainder of his possessions were sold at auction. Sir Eustace Aubrey bought the majority of the books to furnish his newly renovated library. I believe-”

“Yes, I get the gist. So if you don't know what it is, how are we going to find it?”

“It shouldn't present any real difficulties. I know what it is hidden inside.” He made a note on the map of the grounds he had been scribbling in his notebook.

A loud report split the air in two.  Leonie felt a hard hand on her arm, and then Cabal was dragging her down into a dip in the ground. Brambles scraped painfully over her forehead, cold clayey mud seeped through her clothes and insinuated itself along her skin as he pushed an elbow into her back, pressing her into the muck and holding her down.

She struggled. “You sodding idiot. Let me up.”

He didn't budge. “That was a gunshot.”

“Of course it was a gunshot. This is the country. We have hunters and poachers and bored….”

Crack! There was another report, and Leonie saw the impact of the bullet kick dirt into the air. It had hit two feet from Cabal. 

He swore. “We should have run for the woods. But while he might be reloading….” 

The elbow vanished from her back. Cabal raised his hat above the dip in the ground that hid them, and there was silence. “Now.”

And he lunged out of the hollow and pelted towards the wood. Leonie cursed, raised herself, and ran after him. 

The ground sloped up towards the cover of the trees. It was uneven, and long grasses and dead leaves hid the contours of the land. A dangerous place to run. A bullet struck a tree, but Leonie forced herself to watch the ground. She hadn't been thinking about this part, she admitted to herself. Nostalgia for dry warm tombs was one thing, but running in Cabal’s wake, battered, squashed, scraped, and muddy down to her skin reminded her of of the disadvantages of his company. Some forty feet short of the first tree, her toe caught under something, and she went sprawling with a muffled cry. She staggered to her feet, only to feel a flare of pain in her ankle and fall again. 

“Up.’ Cabal was standing over her, tugging her to her feet again. “Up, hurry.” And when she had struggled halfway to her feet he lifted her, grunting unflatteringly, and made for the trees. This always sounded more pleasant in novels, she thought. In practice, his grip hurt, she wasn’t sure her skirt wasn’t riding up in all directions, and while a romantic hero would lay her gently to the forest floor and run frantic hands over her injured form while babbling her name, Cabal just propped her carelessly against a tree before he whooped for breath and clutched at his side. Her ginger rotations of her ankle made her wince. “Find me a stick. We need to keep moving. We're too isolated here.”

He went back the way they had come, and she had to bite her lip to keep from calling after him. Why the hell was he going back towards the gunfire? He was gone a few moments, and he returned without the requested stick. He pulled her arm over his shoulders, and like that they made their way deep into the woods. He was using the same shaving soap he’d used to, she realized with an odd feeling. 

“Will you be able to drive?” His voice was cool.

“…Maybe. Can you?”

“Somewhat.”

“Really? You can fly an ornithopter, but you can’t drive a car?”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t present a problem.”

“I’m driving. But only as far as Tom’s for now. We can regroup there.”

Cabal didn’t look happy. And he released her arm as soon as was decent, finding her a sturdy branch for a support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and encouragements, kind people!


	5. Cabal investigates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabal pries into Tom's domestic arrangements.

Tom’s smile reversed into a scowl when he saw Mr. Frank climb out of the passenger door of Leonie's roadster. The stranger, liberally daubed with mud, sent a contemptuous glance at Tom and walked to the driver’s door while Tom put down his tools and stopped the grinding wheel. Leonie emerged a piece at a time, clinging to the stranger. She blew a tendril of hair out of her face. “Tom! I’m so glad you’re here. I took a bit of a fall.”

That was obviously an understatement. She was upholstered in mud from breast to knee, and her face was scratched. He hastened over. “For heaven’s sake, Kit…”

“Oh, I’m fine. Just a turned ankle, I think.” There was a sparkle in her eyes. “Could you spare some ice?”

“Of course. Here.” And he gave Mr. Frank a tight smile as he elbowed him aside. He gathered Leonie up in his arms as easily as he’d lift a calf. He carried her into the house, his unwanted guest following, and laid her in his armchair. He fetched an ottoman for her injured ankle. 

She protested, “the mud, Tom!”

“Never mind that, sweetheart.”

***

The cloying conversation faded behind Cabal as he left the sitting room. It had been a short drive from the picnic spot. Not far, Cabal thought, if one went straight over the fields by bicycle or on horseback. 

It was time to learn something about this Mr. Soanes. There were no weapons in evidence, but farms had guns, didn’t they? The furnishings were worn. The surfaces were neat but dusty: a bachelor’s home. Except. The kitchen was cooked in regularly. He sniffed the air. Cabal knew the signs of disuse from his own house, and Soanes’ kitchen had none of them. Was it him or Leonie who cooked here? Had she purchased the new wooden spoon, sewn the yellow checked curtains, brought the egg-timer she used when she was making breakfast in the morning after they had… he stifled the thought and moved on to the bathroom. As if to mock his resolution, he found two toothbrushes side-by-side in the tooth glass. 

Only one bedroom was in use. It was bright and well-swept. These furnishings were also worn, but they were maintained and pleasant: a hand-braided rug, soft quilts, lathe-turned bedposts. No papers, no journal. The wardrobe held work attire and a Sundays-and-funerals suit. And one shirtwaist, hidden behind a flannel undershirt. He hadn’t been looking for evidence of that kind. He shut the wardrobe and left the bedroom.

He passed the kitchen on the way back and met their host, who was chipping at a block of ice. Soanes eyed him unenthusiastically, but he reached for a pleasantry. “Fine afternoon.” 

“I hadn’t noticed. Have you known Miss Barrow long?" 

He went back to chipping at the block. “A few years." 

“You appear to be on friendly terms." 

“I’m a lucky man.’ Cabal paused, then gave a curt nod. Soanes continued. “What is your interest, if I may ask?”  The words were deferential, but his tone was not. Soanes straightened, and Cabal was aware of the ice pick in the man’s hand. 

He intentionally let the moment draw out, then spoke. “Miss Barrow is a competent, intelligent person, but she does ‘see the best in people’. Sometimes to the point of absurdity. She believes in the police. I do not. If you were to betray her trust in any way…”

“Mr. Frank, I hate to interrupt you.’ Cabal was put out. And if Soanes’ statement was true, he hid it well. “But you aren't her brother. You aren’t her father. You aren’t even a cousin. And to be plain, she doesn't even seem to like you.”

“I am aware. That is not relevant. I have little to lose by angering her further, and I will not be here much longer. If I find….” Soanes started to interrupt again, but Cabal’s voice dropped, and the sudden viciousness of his tone took the farmer aback. “ _If I find_ you have betrayed her trust or endangered her, then….” And Cabal let the rest of the sentence drop. 

“Who the hell are you, Mr. Frank?” Tom said it more in curiosity than anger. 

Cabal’s lips curved in a charmless smile. “If Miss Barrow hasn't enlightened you, I shall not. But it seems she has kept some secrets from you.” Soanes’ grip tightened on the ice pick, and Cabal knew he’d struck home. He sensibly recognized that he was unlikely to arrive at a better exit line, so he returned to the sitting room where Leonie was half-reclined in the armchair with her eyes closed. 

***

Leonie opened her eyes when Tom returned with a towel tied around ice chips. “I’ll go make some cocoa.” He kissed Leonie on the forehead and returned to the kitchen. 

“I'm not an infant,” she called after him.

“Tha’ll drink it and like it,’ he said in his mother’s accent. It was an old joke between them, and she smiled.

Cabal was at the bookshelf. Was it her imagination, or had his gaze snagged on the chessboard that sat on the corner table?

She applied herself to easing the boot off her foot. She grimaced as she extended the joint to pull it free. 

Cabal left the shelf restlessly and sat on the couch, absently blotting mud on Tom’s upholstery. Or perhaps not so absently. She thought he was disappointed in Tom’s books, which were uniformly practical. He spoke for the first time since they’d arrived. “How common is poaching in this area?”

“Well. No-one would have offered poached birds to us. Maybe Penlow is a hotbed, and I’ve just never heard. But on the other hand,’ Leonie added with a faint smile, “anyone shooting in our general vicinity is usually shooting at you.”

Of course, Tom took that moment to come back. He put a mug of cocoa at Leonie’s elbow. “Shooting? Has someone been shooting at you, Kit?” 

“No, Tom, of course not. It’s not very likely, is it? We were just at the view over Aubrey House and we heard shots. It made us nervous enough to nip along pretty quickly, and I fell.’ Tom was giving Cabal a dirty look. “And don’t fuss, Tom. It’s not Cabal’s fault if our local poachers are trying to get a few birds before the new owners arrive.”

“Poachers. Hmmm.’ Tom was distracted by something. “Is Cabal your Christian name, Mr. Frank?”

Leonie cursed herself. She was reluctant to tell Tom about the Cabal Brothers Carnival. She also didn't want Tom thinking she was on a first-name basis with Cabal. She paused as she decided between these two unappetising choices.

Cabal preempted her. “Yes. I prefer not to use it.” And he gave her a poignard of a look. 

She hurried to change the subject. “Would you take a look at my ankle, ah, Mr. Frank? If it’s just sore, I can drive us home.” She cursed. Having called him Cabal, she should have just stuck with it. Now it looked like she was trying to cover it up, which of course she was. Hadn’t she once been better at this kind of thing?

“You're welcome to stay here,’ Tom offered, a lowering look on his face. “I could fetch the doctor in for you, or Mr. Frank could go. You could stay overnight. I've plenty of room.”

Wouldn't that be a merry little group, she thought. No, she and Cabal needed privacy, for plotting the theft and for other things. “I'd rather get home, if I'm fit to drive.”

Cabal didn’t seem eager to inspect the injury, but he knelt by the ottoman, took Leonie’s stockinged foot and ankle in his gloved hands and gave it a few brisk flexes, which didn’t cause her more than a wince. “Good, I’ll be able to drive. We’d better start now before it swells up.”

And Tom was glaring at Cabal, now. Oh, for heaven’s sake. That had failed as a distraction from the name misstep. The sooner she separated them the better.

She gulped the cocoa and spilled it in her rush. She sucked her splashed wrist clean, tasting more mud than chocolate. “Thanks for sheltering us, Tom. Would you give me a hand up? Oh, just a moment.” She eased her foot into its boot, hissing with pain as the sturdy leather compressed tender bits of her ankle. She tucked the laces in; that would be good enough for the drive.

“Tom?” He was staring at Cabal with the oddest look, and Cabal didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular, but she could read the tension in every line of his body. Had Tom remembered some bit of gossip about a Herr Cabal? No, it was more likely Tom was in a snit because Cabal had touched her ankle. If that's all it was, Tom would have to buck up his ideas.

The two men were immobile a moment longer after Leonie spoke. Tom moved first. "Let's get you out to the car." By the time he'd carried her there, Cabal was already waiting in the passenger seat. She looked up at Tom and spoke softly. “Come by later this afternoon, won’t you? If you can.” He heard the appeal in her voice; he nodded, his face serious. 

“There are things you aren't telling me, Kit.” And with a kiss and a quick embrace, she was in the car and pulling away. 

Leonie did not speak on their way home, distracted by wondering what Tom knew or suspected, and careful of her injury. Cabal was absolutely silent. She did not notice, but he barely breathed.

***

Tom entered his bathroom to find his toothbrush on the floor. Someone had trodden upon it, snapping it in two.

***

Outside the Barrow house, the engine was hardly quiet before Cabal was out of the roadster and heading toward the door. Leonie called after the retreating back. “Cabal? A little help?”

“With what?”

“You're adorable when you're wilfully obtuse. With getting out of the car, you ass." Climbing out of the roadster while wearing a skirt was an art at the best of times, and her ankle had seized up during the drive. It seemed he had forgotten about the ankle. He made a face and hurried back to haul her to her feet. “If you'll just…. Is this a race?” He gave her his arm to lean upon, but he held her away at an awkward distance. He hurried them to the door. 

He was in such a hurry that he rushed her over the doorstep. She stumbled, and she yelped as her bad ankle took her weight. She fell into him, pushing him into the doorframe.

She fumbled for a moment, then pushed herself upright without any help from Cabal. She was about to comment on his carelessness, but she was stopped dead by the expression he was controlling even as she saw it. His blue eyes were wide and fixed on her, his brow tense, his lips a little parted. It could have been surprise, or pain. But Cabal never showed either. 

She began to say, “Cabal…” _are you all right?_ She hadn't hit him very hard, but he might have some half-healed injury he hadn’t mentioned? 

He walked into the hall and upstairs, muttering something about the mud on his suit.

Leonie picked a walking stick from the umbrella stand and sighed. This visit wasn't going well. What had happened to spark such dismay from Cabal?

She changed out of her muddy clothing and spent the next hour at the kitchen table with her ankle raised on a chair, doing accounts. There was still no sign of Cabal. The minute he reappeared, she was going to… she didn’t know what. Make him talk. But he didn't come out of his room. 

Midafternoon, there was a knock on the front door. “Oh, Hildy! Come in.” The woman wore a severe black dress that contrasted with her youth and cheery expression. Hildy was local, more or less, but she’d grown up a few towns away. She and Leonie had become friendly, if not close friends, since Leonie’s return to Penlow. She had lived in town until she got the housekeeper position at the manor, and they had met sometimes for a chat or to do their marketing together. 

“Oh, your poor foot. Tom told me; he seemed very upset. That's a sweetheart of a man you have, Leonie.” Leonie fought not no smile. She didn’t think Tom was looking to stray, but Hildy hadn’t been subtle about her availability. Leonie honestly didn’t think there was anything to it but Hildy’s boundless optimism.

Leonie led them to the kitchen on her guest’s tide of ebullient chatter, which ended in, “Tom said you’d had an accident out by the manor. Are you all right?”

“Oh, fine. I just strained the ankle. Startled by a poacher.’ An idea struck her. “Unless there was some other reason for someone to be shooting by the house today?”

Hildy shook her head vigorously. “No. Mr. Acton’s to act as gamekeeper, but he’s off to the city for some harness today. And is your friend all right?”

“Oh, Mr….’ For a horrible moment, she forgot what alias she’d given Tom. “Frank. Silly me, Mr. Frank is fine. He just got a bit muddy. How’s your new job?”

Hildy happily sailed into a tale of everything she was managing, from the hiring of staff to readying the house for the dance. “It’s a lovely gesture, but couldn’t they have waited just a few weeks, until my staff know the way around the house and I’ve found a dairy supplier who isn’t a drunk?”

Leonie laughed. “Have you tried the Camerons?” And they spent a pleasant half hour discussing the local merchants and farmers vying for the new family’s custom.

Hildy checked the kitchen clock. “I’d better get back. The family’s furniture is arriving tonight, and we’re going to be up until all hours moving it around. I swear I’ll have the staff in bed early tomorrow. We have to be up at five for the family’s arrival, and I don’t want them asleep on their feet. Thank you for the tea, petal. Will you be all right with the ankle? I go by the doctor’s on my way back, and I could send him around?”

“Thanks, but no. It’s just a strain. I should be up and about tomorrow.” 

“Then put it back up, and don’t let your shy houseguest run you off your feet.”

“Oh, he keeps to himself.”

“And a good thing, too.’ Hildy shook a finger at Leonie. “Watch, or Tom won't be happy.”

But Tom, Leonie suspected, was unhappy already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good stuff coming soon, I promise. :)


	6. Brass tacks, at last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom and Cabal give their sides of their stories.

Leonie was heartily tired of waiting for either Johannes Cabal or Thomas Soanes to descend from one of their respective mountaintops and bestow his presence upon her like some glorious jewel. She sat on the wide wooden steps that descended from the kitchen door to the garden. The sun warmed them, and she could look at the garden with her ankle propped up. The sore part of her ankle was thick and bluish, but it wasn’t getting any worse. It was almost dinnertime when she heard Tom propping his bicycle against the gate. She called to him, and he rounded the house. He gave her a peck on the cheek and sat down on the lower step. “Beans are flourishing.”

“Yes, they are. Out with it.”

Tom sighed. “Kitty, I’m not going to tell you who you can have in your dad’s home-

“-in _my_ home, thank you.”

“-but there's something odd about this guest of yours.”

“You’re not the first to say that.”

Tom wasn’t to be sidetracked. “You have him to stay, but you aren’t happy to see him. You say he’s a friend, but you don’t like him much. He arrives in Penlow yesterday, and now he tells me he'll be leaving soon.”

She hid her dismay. Leaving! Already? He’d made up his mind to go before they’d even…. Well, they would surely get _the thing_ tomorrow. There wasn’t anything else keeping him here. They’d talk, and then he’d leave.

Tom was still speaking “And since we're engaged-“

Oh dear: the ’engagement.’ Back when they had started courting, it had become clear to her that Tom would only go to bed with her once they were ’engaged ’. She didn't wear a ring, and they hadn't told anyone. Leonie's didn't think of it as a promise of marriage. It was a contract of exclusivity, a nod in the direction of sexual morality and Tom’s guarantee to Do The Right Thing by her if required. To have him bring it up now was just a mite concerning.

“-I just worry about him being in the house. He could stay with me.”

“No, Tom, that won't do. I can handle him, but I couldn't inflict him on you.” Leonie heard the door between the kitchen open and close, and then, faintly, the front door.

“He doesn't seem to hate everyone. Me, maybe.”

“And what does that mean?” But she relaxed. She could hear in his voice what was coming, and she was prepared to find it amusing. If that was all it was….

“I mean he was looking at you.”

“Tom Soanes,’ she said lightly. “If you're planning to get worked up every time a man lays eyes on me, you are going to have a busy life. What about poor Andy in my tutorial last year? Are you planning to assert your rights with him?”

“I might do, if you invite him to stay. But that's not what I meant.” 

“What did you mean then? You don't mean he was leering at me, surely.”

Tom was struggling to express it. This morning, Leonie had sucked a drop of spilled cocoa off her wrist, and Mr. Frank had looked away as if she'd opened her blouse. 

It was a little thing, looking away: almost the opposite of the ogling at which he could have taken real offence, but to Tom it had seemed like the strongest of warning signs. If you looked and then looked away, it was because you couldn't stop yourself. _You dirty bastard_ , Tom had thought, as the German’s fixed gaze had broken away from Leonie and met Tom’s eyes by accident. Because Tom, too, had felt a little tug of lust and imagined her lips and tongue on his skin, and the idea of that man thinking the same was disgusting.

Tom hadn't imagined the tiny flame of animosity that lit in the man’s eyes, glinting like the point of a blowtorch. 

That man was possessive of Leonie. And he had looked away from her mouth as if he might betray himself if he watched. But Tom didn't know how to describe this to her. He struggled, then growled, “I don't like it. You won't tell me about him. And that man wants in your bed.”

From her smile, he knew he had already lost. “Tom. I'm going to decide this is adorable, all right? Believe me, even if you were right, he would be the last to know. He was probably glaring. He glares at everything and everyone. Sometimes he takes notes about the things he glares at; he's a scientist.’ She was ready to be conciliatory, as long as they were done with the subject. “I don't expect he likes you, and I'm sorry you had to put up with him last night and this morning. You were very polite. He'll only be in town for a few days, and either we’ll patch it up or I’ll cast him out with all ceremony.”

“I don't like him being here. He acts like he has some sort of, of claim.”

She took hold of her temper and tried to soothe him. “I don't blame you for not liking him. But if he'd ever try to hurt me, I wouldn't have let him in the house. Or is it me you don't trust? Do you think I’ll succumb to Cabal's expert techniques of seduction?” 

“Oh, aye. He's a regular Don Juan, that's plain.” He smiled. But he noticed she wasn't calling him “Mr. Frank” anymore.

***

Cabal’s return was so conveniently timed that he must have seen Tom leave. Leonie was returning to her seat with a large plate of sandwiches. 

“So. What did Mr. Soanes have to say?” He sat on the step below and took a sandwich. 

“Oh, sweet nothings, you know. You seem to have made an impression.’ She looked at him narrowly and debated sharing the details. “I'm not going to plan more tête-à-têtes for the three of us.” Cabal wasn't listening anyway. Tom was simply jealous. Cabal hated him because he was there, and he was reading too much into it. 

Cabal lusting after her: the very idea! Leonie had sometimes wondered, feeling a disloyal twinge, exactly what Cabal planned to do with the woman in the glass coffin, if he ever succeeded in waking her. But maybe she’d be happy holding hands and washing test tubes for the rest of her natural life; many women would see that as a relief, she supposed. She dismissed the idea.

“Are you at all concerned about the gunfire earlier?”

“Not yet. I imagine it won't recur after I leave.”

“Will you go to the house tonight?” She didn’t expect Cabal to put off the theft just because she had - “oh! I just remembered. I was speaking with the housekeeper, and she said they’re going to be up to all hours tonight and in bed early tomorrow.”

“That sounds like a simple decision, then. I can afford another day.”

“Tom said you were leaving soon.” She tried to sound neutral about it.

“The day after tomorrow, if we are successful.”

“Right.” She took another sandwich. “How is your work on a cure for Horst going?"

“Slowly. I had to learn new branches of biology, reacquaint myself with the most reliable texts, gain access to the university facilities. Write grant proposals.”

Leonie snorted into her sandwich. “Grant proposals?”

Cabal looked back at her without a hint of humour. “It is only sensible to seek university funds.” 

The truth was that he, and one does not employ this verb lightly where Cabal is concerned, loved research grants. The paperwork was agonizing, but something perverse in him enjoyed reframing his work to sound commonplace. Coming up with new and suitably boring circumlocutions for the word “vampirism” had become a sort of private parlour game. 

“I have been trying to create vampiric lab animals for testing, with Horst’s reluctant cooperation. But the condition hasn’t been taking hold. All I have is a cage full of anaemic mice. I will eventually need test subjects; perhaps primates will be a closer match. If that fails, I am at an impasse. The few vampires I have met besides my brother would not be easy to force, and ‘the common good’ and ‘the advancement of human knowledge’ are not subjects of compelling interest to them. I may be able to find feral vampires in Siebenbürgen, but that will be dangerous. In some ways, life was simpler when….”

He let the sentence drop and applied himself to the sandwiches. 

“So, do you have to teach? Publish? Attend _department meetings_?” Leonie smiled evilly, hoping to ease the sudden tension. 

“Department meetings are only for staff who are not in the possession of incriminating documents relating to the dean.”

“Ah. I imagine that’s also how you got a research fellowship without actually having a doctorate.” 

“Several of my aliases have doctorates.’ He took a bite and his face softened. “What is in this sandwich?”

He sounded suspicious, but he looked pleased. “Just tinned meat and pickle. Not poisoned, I promise. Why?”

“No reason.’ He finished it and hunted through the plate for another. “The English pickle is an inferior article. But you can’t get them there.”

She frowned. “Cabal, you scum, I _made_ those inferior pickles.”

“What?”

“No, just teasing you. They're from the shop. You're not wrong, though. They're good.”

Cabal resettled himself on the steps, leaned his head back against the post. “So, you work at the university, then?”

She nodded. “I teach aspects of abnormal psychology and the survey course, introduction to criminology. It’s… not as interesting as I'd hoped, actually.”

“I always said you would be wasted in academia.” 

“Sod off. I was wrapping up dad’s affairs, and seeing Tom, and it seemed like the thing to do when they offered the position. I'm the only woman on the department’s academic staff. I think the dean still hopes I'll discover an enthusiasm for child psychology, but they let me work.”

“Do you still study necromancers?”

“Not particularly. I do a brief review in the survey course, and the abnormal psychology course has a more in-depth treatment, but it's not my particular area now. You can't make a career out of that. I mostly publish on criminology of repressive regimes and resistance movements. I’ve written some articles.”

“ _Police responses to dissident activity in Katamenia’s near east possessions_ , published in the Bulletin of the British Criminological Association, volume forty-one. Before that, _Resisting the Criminal State: anti-government movements in Mirkarvia_ , volume thirty-eight. Also, _Systemic Police Corruption in Yorkshire_ , Journal of Anglo-American Criminal Justice Studies, volume 10, fascicle 2. And others.” He embarked on another sandwich.

It was her turn to soften. “You've followed my work.”

“Of course I have.”

Leonie had been making mental images of Cabal’s life in Poloruss. He worked out of a university, so she saw him crossing a quadrangle in his winter coat, like a black knife cutting through snow and unruly undergraduates. She saw him in a lab, but a larger, institutional one now. She saw him looking sour at Horst, on some continental boulevard. But now, she also saw him visiting the criminology library and checking the new journals for her name. 

“Your French is stilted,” he said.

“Oh, God, the review for that French journal. You should have seen the deadline they gave me. They’re lucky it wasn’t in gibberish.”

The sun was low now, and the breeze off the hills was cooling. Cabal came out with a non sequiter. “When did you become affianced?”

“Oh. Did I mention that?’ Cabal's face was blank. He had spent the better part of his life winkling occult secrets from the fabric of reality. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised when he found things out. “A few years.”

“Long engagements are foolish. What are you waiting for?”

“I don't think you have the right to ask me any questions, Herr Professor Cabal. Not until you’ve answered some. Let's go inside. I'm ready to hear it now.”

***  
***

“And four wax candles in the darkened room,  
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,  
An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb  
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.”

T. S. Eliot, _Portrait of a Lady_

They sat by a small fire, kindled more for the idea of warmth than because of any real chill in the air. Cabal told the story of his departure from England. His account was not emotive, but neither was it as dry as he wished it to be. Leonie, of course, understood more than he intended.

***

Johannes Cabal dug a grave.  It was the first inhumation he had ever performed, and it was for the subject of his first exhumation.  When he was seventeen, he had stood at a fresh grave and pushed a shovel into a carefully piled mound of dirt. The earth had been soft and light, but soon his muscles ached and his hands blistered, then bled.  The blood ran together with the dirt. The mud ground into his palms.  Now he dug a hole in the root-laced soil of his own garden, and the hard muscles of his back and his calloused hands did not protest.   

He had failed, and she was dead, and the guilt and shame of it pressed down on him so he could hardly breathe.  He lowered her shrouded body into the hole and then he shovelled dirt onto her, onto the face and tangled hair beneath the shroud, until she disappeared, until the hole was full.  He put the shovel away in the tool shed, and then he went inside to end his life. 

The boiler would take twenty minutes, by his estimate, to overload.  The explosion would start a chain reaction among the liquid oxygen cylinders in the cellar laboratory, and there would be very little left after that.  He went to his workbench in the attic and loaded the Webley Boxer.  He considered, briefly, the two depressing afterlives that were on offer.  He hoped instead for silence, for peace.  

He looked at the gun.  He had feared failure, but he had accepted it as a possible consequence of trying.  He had failed now, and it was bitter.  But so much worse - and he had never realised that anything could be worse - was the knowledge that he might have been at fault.  

In the end, it didn't make a difference. He had made himself into a tool for one purpose, and that purpose was gone. In the cellar, the boiler built pressure. 

He had confidence in the Webley's ability to end his life quickly and thoroughly.  Why was he still staring at it?   

What else could he do?   

He picked up the Webley.  He placed it in an open Gladstone bag.  He hadn't even removed the safety, he realised.  The surgical tools were in the bag already, and he didn't bother to remove them.   He left the sword-stick.  On his way out of the house he added a file of business papers.  He picked up a hat and put a coat over his filthy shirt.  

He left through the front door, and he left it open behind him. The garden murmured as he passed. He heard the explosion after he had crested the hill, felt the flexion of the damp air and the bloom of heat.  
   
He didn’t walk towards the village. He put mile after mile behind him in the dark, the road lit only by the moon. He walked through the night and through the dawn, and then he walked under a weak sun. His head was full of the ritual, the chemicals, the instruments, the smoke, and finally, holding her limp hand in the silence that threatened to swallow the world. 

He tried, over and over again, to find his error, the crack through which life had slipped. His brain having abdicated, his body walked, and walked, and walked.

***

By Leonie’s fireside, something attracted his attention. “You're weeping,” he said.

“No,’ she said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Continue.”

***

He awoke in a room above an inn; he had collapsed on the road and some passersby had found the Biblical parallel too strong to resist.  He got up from the bed, still in his dirt-stained clothing. He went to the washstand and looked in the shaving mirror.  He was Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy.  Only he wasn’t.  He looked at his blue-grey eyes, his blond hair, invisibly threaded with a few greys, his bristly, haggard face.  He looked like Johannes Cabal's corpse, but he was not dead. He had no idea what to do.   

His head swam, and he lay down again.  He had no home, no task, no direction.  All his research, gone.  But did he care about that, now?  He had boasted, yes, about the glory of being the modern Prometheus, bringing the fire of life to mankind, but in his heart of hearts had he really given a moldy groat for any of them but her? 

*** 

Cabal lapsed into silence. Leonie waited quietly as the minutes ticked by, but finally she asked, “and what did you do then?”

He didn't answer immediately. She had the feeling he was editing. “I went to the continent." 

“And what did you do there?" 

“I found Horst, first.”

Leonie tried not to feel jealous. Of course he went to his brother, his family, someone who had known his fiancee and seen the beginning of his quest. “And after that?”

“After that, I… studied. Travelled. This and that. I have been trying to find a cure for Horst, as I mentioned.”

“But…all those years. Why didn’t you write? It would only have taken a line.’ She was aghast. There must be something more to the story. “You wouldn’t even have needed to tell me what had happened, just that you were all right.’ She shook her head. “Cabal, I know you must have been… I can understand a month, six months, but wasn’t there a day you woke up and realised I would be afraid? Even you couldn’t be that oblivious.’ She had meant to be reasonable, but she was becoming upset. She didn't care if it made her look pathetic. “You knew I cared.”

“I’m sorry.” And the bleakness in his look chilled her. She waited for a minute: two, three. Then she sighed, at the end of her patience, and went upstairs. He sat in the empty room and waited for her to go to bed. He sat alone for an hour or so, staring into the embers. He set the screen in front of the fire, extinguished the lights, one after another, and sought his room.


	7. Pasiná

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [One extended authorial scream]. Ahem. Leonie and Cabal brood on the day's events, separately, and then we get a flashback from immediately after his departure from England.

“I decided that if the shaking of her breasts could be  
stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might  
be collected, and I concentrated my attention with  
careful subtlety to this end.”

T. S. Eliot, _Hysteria_

 

Johannes Cabal lay in erotic hell. 

Erotic hell looked like Leonie's guest room, because it was. And twelve feet from him, northwest, Leonie was undressing.  He might as well be in the room, for how clear it was.  Her blouse and skirt.  Her stockings and drawers.  His mouth was dry. He had thought the walls of English cottages were made of thick peasant stone, not tissue paper and muslin. He felt obscurely guilty. 

This had not been the plan. He had wanted to see her. He had wanted to give her the chance to slam the door in his face, or curse him, or… or whatever she needed to do. He had not intended, had not even thought it was possible, for this to happen, to return, but it had. He could pinpoint the moment it all fell apart. Afterwards, he had tried to keep away from her. He had. But her _verdammt_ ankle had made it difficult, and then on the way into the house she had slipped, and her soft weight had pressed against him from breast to thigh, and it had been the sweetest thing he’d felt in years. He’d almost tried to take hold of her when she moved away. So, he had hidden in his room for the rest of the afternoon until he was sure he could be trusted in company. When he’d come downstairs, he’d overheard she was engaged to be married.

__He didn’t give a damn that some other man thought he owned her. That was Tom Soane’s delusion and one Leonie could cure him of without Cabal’s help. But even, Cabal thought, if he hadn’t been _himself_ , it meant she had committed herself to that toad of a man. He hadn’t expected her to be single. He hadn’t expected anything. _ _

__He lay in bed, hearing her grunt as her hairbrush caught a tangle.  Was she still unclothed? He heard the swish of water.  And only then did he hear her open a drawer, close it, pull the nightdress on, and slip into bed.  Male physiology was endlessly irritating; he had created a tent in the bedsheets._ _

__He tried to focus on anything else.   He ran the periodic table through his head, first by atomic number and then by group. He made a pleasant little arrangement of the radioactive elements. In desperation, he almost thought about… about worse things, just to make it go away. That did not sit well with him, so he dismissed the idea as it formed._ _

__He couldn’t stop thinking about her: specifically, he clarified grimly, about engaging in sexual relations with her; he wasn’t obsessed with her academic work. He was thinking about being in her bedroom, in her bed, her arms wrapped around him, her legs wrapped around him, the heat of her body, the scent of her hair rising into his face, thinking about easing himself in between her thighs while she made a ridiculously specific keening moan he had no reason to believe she had ever made, would ever make, or might even think of making while he was in the same county. He shuddered and covered his face._ _

__If one was going to pursue this scenario in any way - which he most certainly was not - how would one even do it? Just… stand up and… walk over to her door and… he bared his teeth in the dark. What a pretty picture that would be: him bursting through the door with his erection bobbing in front of him.  The Johannes Cabal school of seduction.  She would shoot his idiot head off, and quite right, too. He did not wonder what Horst would do. Horst had never been in this dilemma. If he was interested in someone, she would have knocked on his door the first night. They probably wouldn’t have left the bed until the second night. And he thought about doing that with Leonie, of spending a long night followed by a lazy, sensual day of sleep and love and he had to swallow a sound._ _

__He was going to die of lust, if the embarrassment didn’t get him first. He mentally chiselled a headstone: “Here lies Johannes Cabal/ survivor of blade, bullet, and black arts/ died of an aneurism brought on by his own intemperate trouser-longings.” It would be a bad joke, if his heartbeat and breath weren’t rushing in his ears._ _

__There was, of course, a remedy, if only a temporary one. He might be able to sleep. But he didn’t do that. Cleaning himself afterward was such a chore, and that would not be quiet. But most of all there was something tawdry in the idea of taking himself in hand, thrusting into his fist, coming in hot spurts on his stomach while Leonie slept the sleep of the innocent in the next room. Her feelings were hurt, still: hurt because he had found no way out of the trap he had been in, until years had passed, until it was too late. He deserved some pain._ _

__So: hell._ _

__***_ _

__Leonie lay in bed, not entirely composed either. She was thinking about Johannes Cabal, and she had come to a conclusion. There was more to the story. She felt it. She believed it. Oh yes, he had royally cocked up his grand return, but it wasn't because he didn't care._ _

__Dear god, it was a miracle that he was still alive, after what had happened. Did he question himself, wonder if he had done everything he could? She had never known someone so single-mindedly devoted. Nothing else had mattered to him, not wealth or fame or comfort or safety. But no, she corrected herself. Horst had mattered. And so had she, at least a little. She couldn't imagine the reason for his silence. She was, however, willing to believe there was one. He was going to have to do better than “sorry,” and if patience didn't work, she'd try something harsher._ _

__It had been difficult for him to tell the story, to return to that day. He had broken into a sweat telling it. He looked the same, even sounded and acted the same sometimes, but she wondered what he had given up, what he had done to survive. But he was alive and sane. Johannes Cabal was alive, and something about the thought sang through her._ _

And on an unrelated subject, she had blocked her ears while he prepared for bed. She'd felt like an idiot doing it, and worse yet, it hadn't stopped her from thinking about him. Her mind had helpfully supplied images and ideas, and the whole thing left her feeling uncomfortable. Thinking wasn’t being unfaithful. Everyone _thought_ , or she imagined they did. But did they think about people they knew well, and did they do it two nights in a row? It was the shock. Her brain was getting muddled. She was just happy to see him again. Maybe she would visit Tom tomorrow and patch things up. 

__

__***_ _

“You tossed a blanket from the bed,  
     You lay upon your back, and waited;  
     You dozed, and watched the night revealing  
     The thousand sordid images  
     Of which your soul was constituted;” 

T. S. Eliot, _Preludes: iii_

__

__Horst woke up one evening to find Johannes in his sitting room._ _

__Horst didn't have to feign his welcome. “Hullo! What a surprise! It's nice to see you.” He was tickled. It would almost certainly turn out that Johannes was in the neighbourhood stealing something - and the odds were good that he also wanted Horst’s help stealing it - but as a Cabal, you took your family activities where you could find them. In any case, the eldritch tomes and whatnot might be in worse hands than his brother’s._ _

__Johannes sat at one end of Horst's couch, smoking. He was perfectly groomed. His Gladstone bag sat at his feet, exactly parallel with the couch and at a flawless right angle to the occasional table. “Good evening, Horst. How’s the life of the undead in Pasiná?”_ _

__“Oh, you know. Tolerable. I have some good friends here.” Friends who didn’t know one very important thing about their good friend Horst. “Good conversation, good dancing.”_ _

__“Good food?”_ _

__Horst’s face soured. “I don’t eat. And I don’t drink them.”_ _

__“How’s the hunting?”_ _

__“It's fine. What brings you to town?”_ _

__“A vacation.”_ _

__Horst laughed. “Fine. Don’t tell me.’ He handed Johannes a glass of port from a bottle someone had left. “But no more museums. Or at least, no more museum vaults. Let’s see some night life this time.”_ _

__“I am not working. The experiment failed.” Johannes drank the glass of port as if he wished it was stronger. He winced at the sweetness._ _

__“I don’t understand.”_ _

__“She is truly dead. I buried her. In the garden.’ He said it as if he’d practiced it. Not so his next words. “I am here because I suspect I will require some looking after.” And he looked up at Horst. Twenty years evaporated at the look on Johannes’ face and the quaver in his voice._ _

__“I expect you shall,’ Horst said gently. And he took his younger brother in his arms._ _

__***_ _

__“You said you were going to need some looking after,’ Horst said. “So here it is. I hope you like it.’ He turned up the lamp and pulled the sheets off his brother. “You are bathing, and then you are eating. God knows you are going to shave, and then you are dressing in one of those bad jokes you call suits, and I am taking you outdoors.”_ _

__Johannes opened one bloodshot eye, closed it again, and rolled over, presenting his naked back._ _

__Horst hoped he couldn’t hear the fear under his bravado. “It’s still alcoholism if it's wine, you know.” Johannes ignored him. A light shiver started down his back. It was cool in the room. “If you don’t pull yourself together and get out of bed, I’m going to bring Leonie Barrow here and _show you to her_.” _ _

__Johannes didn't move, but the shiver died as his muscles tensed. “You wouldn’t dare.”_ _

__“I would,’ Horst replied with feigned carelessness. “If you’re going to kill yourself by degrees in my guest room, I don’t see why I should keep the spectacle to myself.”_ _

__Johannes cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder at Horst. His jawline was blurry with a short, scruffy beard. “If you contact Miss Barrow, I will leave. You will never see me again.”_ _

__Horst didn’t show how much that frightened him. “Big loss. Unless you start acting like yourself again - or, at bare minimum, like a biped with something to live for - I'll have her here in a few days.”_ _

__“No. You must not tell her I am here.’ His tone had a strength Horst hadn't heard in days. Finally, he thought, something he said had got through. “I won’t talk to her. I won’t see her.” He groped for the sheet and covered himself._ _

__“Why ever not?” Horst was taken aback. He was suddenly suspicious, though surely he was wrong. “What does she have to do with any of this? Johannes, you did see her before you left, didn’t you?” Silence. “You have written her, then?”_ _

__“It’s none of your business.”_ _

__Horst was shocked. “That’s low, Johannes. That’s really low. You mean, she’s heard nothing from you? It's been months. What if she makes enquiries? What if she… oh, lord, what if she visits the house looking for you? Well, the devil with that. I’m going to write her right now. Really, you… hup!”_ _

__And a skinny, naked, not-very-presentable figure took him by the shoulders and wrenched him back into the room. “No. I’ll leave. I….” And Horst was appalled to realise that Johannes was weeping._ _

__“Oh, _Brüderlein_.” And Horst embraced his little brother in pity and confusion. And Johannes sobbed on his shoulder in silent convulsions that seemed torn out of him, one after another. _ _

__***_ _

__It was better after that. Johannes ate and slept, and he drank rarely if not moderately. He was still withdrawn to the point of paralysis. It wasn’t as much of an improvement as Horst had wanted, but he took him out to meet his friends for dinner, to soirees, to evening salons. Johannes was left to his own devices during the day, of course._ _

__With time, Johannes’ frozen silence ebbed into to the sardonic mood Horst remembered from the year of the carnival. At least Johannes was behaving like some version of himself. He gritted his teeth and trusted to time to wear the edges off before he lost his entire social circle to Johannes’ rudeness and scorn._ _

__But Johannes was accepted, eventually. He was a pill, but he was Horst's brother, and some people were intrigued by him. After a time, Horst started hearing some odd things. He dismissed them at first, but the evidence grew. Johannes was absent at night, sometimes, and he didn’t return until after dawn. Some people behaved oddly around him._ _

__Horst dragged the story out of an acquaintance: Johannes had been seen leaving the house of a minor principessa of their acquaintance early in the morning. For the next few nights, Horst burst out of his chest to find Johannes already gone, but the next night he ran late, and Horst caught up with him at the door._ _

__“Where are you going?”_ _

__“Out.”_ _

__This with a cold insolence that gave Horst a wave of sympathy for their parents._ _

__“Out to Bianca’s?” A very awkward line of questioning was met with the information that yes, Johannes had been calling on her, would be calling on her all night, and that, in short, was where he had been this week. “You know she’s married.’ Johannes shrugged. “So you’ve been….”_ _

__Johannes looked weary under his sneer. “Yes.”_ _

__“Do you… like her?”_ _

__Johannes shrugged again. “It was Agathe before that. And Frau Grey before that.”_ _

__Horst boggled. It was hard to picture his brother in sordid intrigue. Horst was not one to judge someone for a bit of merry bed-hopping. Far from it. The loss of merry bed-hopping was one of his keenest regrets. But Johannes was different. He’d only ever shown an interest in one woman - or two, depending on how you defined ‘interest.’_ _

__The women Johannes had named were quite different from those two. One didn’t like to judge other people’s pleasures, of course. He knew one man who enjoyed doing Swedish exercises first thing in the morning. He’d shown him once, and it was a lot of jumping and pushups and whatnot, and it looked like the last thing a man of sense would want to do before breakfast. However, the fellow had said it made him feel alive and wiped the cobwebs away, so Horst had tried to be encouraging. Similarly, some people enjoyed belonging to gentleman’s clubs or raising cavies or speaking in parliament, and they were welcome to their fun. All part of the glorious tapestry of the human race, Horst thought. But he flattered himself that he knew a little about relations between the sexes. It struck him that Agathe, Mary Grey, and Bianca were rather of the notch-in-the-bedpost persuasion, who viewed the social column as a kind of menu. He didn’t like that attitude in men, and he didn’t like the idea of that trio passing his little brother around their circle like a new cocktail. If only it had been Gerta, or Ekaterina._ _

__“Is it making you happy?”_ _

__And there was a diseased humour on his brother's face at that. “Happy?”_ _

__“Yes. It should make you, and them, happy, unless you're doing it wrong.’ Horst turned and shot the door’s deadbolt home. “Well, it stops now.”_ _

__“Really. Horst Cabal, the Puritan? If you're defending their virtue from my heartless seduction, I assure you, it was rather the other way around.”_ _

__He couldn't believe he was nostalgic for the days Johannes had come to town to conduct theft in the pursuit of necromancy. It hadn't seemed like a golden age or a simpler time, but that was increasingly how he felt about it. He had always hoped, of course, that Johannes would give it all up. Now he saw that his vague image of Johannes settling down quietly to have a family and tend a garden had been naive. “All right, they are a bit… cosmopolitan. But you’re not.’ Horst had a realisation. “You're using them to punish yourself, aren’t you? You’ve just found a new way. That's bad, Johannes. That's wrong. Harmful for you, at least, and disrespectful to them.”_ _

__“I am humbled by your starry wisdom. I have seen the error of… no, wait, I haven't. This is between me and the women in question.”_ _

__“Fine. But it won't do much for your reputation as a Don Juan if I carry you home from your next assignation.”_ _

__Cabal felt a surge of mingled anger and relief. “You wouldn't dare,” he said. God, but he was tired of it. The women had been identical to his deadened senses. They had taken him into their beds with more or less directness, and had given him a sort of education: everything but why._ _

__Horst found him at home the next night, and nearly every night after._ _

__After his retirement from society, Johannes began to read again. He stacked his bedroom with books - and then the living room - and then the hallway. They were mostly about advanced biochemistry and vampirism. Horst stopped entertaining at home._ _

__He drew the line at experimentation in the flat. After several fights and one confiscation of a bunsen burner, Johannes forged some credentials that got him a research fellowship in the chemistry faculty of the university._ _

__Time passed. Months. Years. He became very much like Johannes Cabal again. But he still wouldn’t talk about Leonie._ _

__Horst dared to raise the subject one spring day over pastries and coffee at Johannes’ favourite cafe. “I don't understand why you won't see her. Or tell her you're alive, at least. Now, if I am any judge - and I really, really am - the woman loved you, and you….”_ _

__“Stop. Stop now.” Cabal pushed his chair back from the table._ _

__Horst heard the desperation in it. “…And you left her without a word,’ he finished lamely. “You’ll have to deal with it some day. It was shabby of you.”_ _

Johannes sagged back into his seat. He crumbled the remains of his _piernik_ on his plate for a minute before answering. “I cannot. Don't ask. I have not forgotten.” 

__Cabal didn’t sleep that night, which was not unusual. But he didn’t work that night, either. He sat in the university’s laboratory, staring at the wall, thinking of what Horst had said._ _

__Leonie Barrow had loved him?_ _


	8. A Game of Chess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moves and countermoves; and a little more Horst.

“I am moved by fancies that are curled  
Around these images, and cling:  
The notion of some infinitely gentle  
Infinitely suffering thing.”

T. S. Eliot. _Preludes_ iv 

 

There was oatmeal porridge on the stove: an invention of the Scots, intended to spread their national temperament beyond their borders. Cabal served himself a bowl of the substance, even forgoing the pleasure of complaining about it. He didn’t look hollow-eyed or lethargic. He was used to going without sleep. It was always easy to tell when Leonie’s night had been disturbed; her morning silence shaded into grouchiness. He encouraged his porridge into edibility with cream and sugar and poured himself a cup of tea. “So. We go tonight?”

“Yes.”

They drank tea, spooned oatmeal, and read the paper. 

After she’d finished her breakfast, she lifted her head from the news. “Sleep well?”

“Sufficiently.” There was the ghost of a line printed on her cheek from a wrinkle in her pillowcase. He wondered what it would feel like under his lips. He looked down at the dirty dishes. 

“So, tonight.’ He collected the bowls and spoons from the table and stacked them in the sink. “It should be simplicity itself, if your friend Hetty’s information is accurate. We will wait until eleven p.m., leave your vehicle a little beyond the main drive, and take up a surveillance point behind the yew bushes at the north side. If, as expected, the house remains quiet for another hour, we shall circle around to the library’s French doors and enter through them.” He found her apron, put it on, and started washing up. “Once inside, we will locate the book and leave. One hopes they will have their library shelved according a rational classification system, but that step may take some time.”

He was drying the last spoon. He set it neatly in its drawer, closed the drawer fully, and wiped a streak of water from the countertop with the rag, which he wrung out and hung to dry. He removed the apron and hung it on its peg. Her expression arrested him. “What are you looking at, Miss Barrow?”

“Nothing.” He knew she was lying; that was a bemused look. He was about to insist upon an answer when a series of memories from the past hit him: no good ever came of making her explain that smile. He resumed his chair and cup. She had poured for him and added a slice of lemon. She changed the subject. “I need to do some chores today. What are your plans?”

He frowned. “Not be recognized by your neighbours. But I shall need to wire for my trunk: yesterday's suit is unwearable.”

“I’m going to roast a chicken for later and do a few things around the house. Watch out for gunmen at the post office.”

***

Cabal prepared to leave. She dressed the chicken; if she delayed cooking it any longer, it would spoil. Somehow, the previous day had been busier than she’d expected. She had just slid it in the oven and checked the clock when Cabal appeared. “Miss Barrow; come look at this.”

“Look at what?” But he was already gone. She followed him outdoors. There was something there, but at first glance it didn’t merit Cabal’s seriousness. “That?’ She peered at the small round object on the ground. “What is it, a piece of garbage?”

“Do you often find disfigured doll heads on your doorstep? I’m not familiar with your wildlife. Perhaps the foxes leave them?” He picked it up and showed it to her. The object was made from a pale, flexible rubber formed into a rudimentary head. Twists of synthetic yellow hair had been punched into the scalp by a machine, and what remained of the face was painted with an open-mouthed infantile expression. It had been slashed, over and over, with a sharp knife. The paint flaked from the rubber, and in several places the material was pierced through. 

“That’s horrible.’ The longer she looked at it, the uglier it got. It was the impression of the hatred and frenzy in the attack on the harmless object. “It sets off a few warning bells, doesn’t it. Is there anything you can do to tell us who left it?”

His divination tools had gone up in the fire, and he had not yet been forced to replace them. “No,’ he said. “As a local, you would know better than I. But,’ he added after a moment, “it’s the sort of thing we gave as prizes at the carnival.”

“Oh really? Somehow I didn’t have a chance to enjoy the midway when I visited. Is this aimed at you, do you think? Have you been recognised?”

“If so, they have hidden it. But it is the most likely possibility.” Cabal fingered the wisp of artificial blonde curls.

“What other alternatives are there?”

“Could it be aimed at you?”

It was so unlikely, Leonie wasn’t troubled. “I can’t imagine that it would be. Who would do this?”

Cabal toyed with the head while he decided something. “Could it be Tom?”

Leonie guffawed. “Do you think Tom keeps a few kewpie dolls around in case he gets annoyed with me? Seriously, Cabal. Think about it. Even if he was that angry about your staying here - and believe me, he isn’t - you only arrived in town two days ago.”

“I was quite serious.”

“I know you don’t like him, but that’s ridiculous. Don't you think I'd know if he was capable of something like this?”

Cabal persisted. “People can be blind about those closest to them. I do not insist upon the theory, but I had wondered if he was behind the so-called poaching gunshots.”

“If only we had a doctor of criminology around we could ask.” Her tone was lightly laced with acid.

“Under normal circumstances I would not contradict your professional opinion-”

“Ha. Very funny. But he couldn't have shot at us. There wasn't time for him to get back to the farm. But even if there was,’ and, she admitted to herself, it might just barely have worked, slow as she’d been driving, “the larger problem,’ she explained patiently, “is that it’s ridiculous.”

“If he saw me as some kind of threat,’ he said. “I can easily imagine him threatening my life.” _Because I would happily threaten sixteen of him, if it scared him away from you_. “The objection is, of course, that you were also at risk.’ And his eye fell on the rubber head. One slash had bisected a painted cheek clear through. “But a good shot might feel secure.”

“That’s insane.”

“Yes, it would be. But there is one objection to your theory. The final minutes of the carnival were horrifying, but not overly damaging. I might believe that a group of intoxicated and overzealous residents might rough me up, even try a little impromptu hanging, but this… this is hatred. I took only two souls in Penlow: yours and Nea Winshaw’s. Unless Miss Winshaw has returned, I do not know of anyone with a reason for hating me so.”

***

“Lunch, Cabal.” He had gone to the post office, and she had set the kitchen to rights. She’d heated some soup when he returned, and she carried her bowl carefully to the table. They had dropped the subject from earlier. His objection carried some weight, but she couldn’t believe it was Tom behind this. Maybe Cabal had made an enemy between the train station and her house. She had every faith in his ability to provoke violent hatred on the briefest acquaintence.

“You’re limping.”

“I suppose I am. I suppose you could have made lunch.”

He looked severe. “You won’t be in shape for this evening if you strain it.” 

“It felt all right at first.” She subsided unhappily into her chair and tugged a footstool over to raise her ankle. 

Cabal pulled the footstool out of her hands, sat on it, and guided her raised limb onto his knee. He stripped off the slipper and prodded the joint again. 

“Ow!” 

He nodded, satisfied, and shifted his fingers to apply pressure, not on the painful area, but on the calf muscles that had been straining to protect the injury all morning. 

“Ow - oh. Ohhhhh….” That actually felt marvellous. His fingers followed the muscle up her leg, rubbing and pressing.  
“Oh, keep doing that.” She felt a layer of tension fade away that she hadn't even noticed. She gave a blissful sigh as he soothed away the cramped, overtired feeling that had grown over the morning, like a building migraine. He was frowning, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. She suspected he was reinventing massage from first principles.

“Anterior talofibular ligament,’ he said, eventually. “A little bruised, that’s all.”

She roused herself from the pleasurable daze. She should make conversation before he noticed how much she was enjoying this and stopped. “That’s awfully specific. Is that part of your research? Are you planning to cure Horst’s vampirism from the ankles up?”

“No. I once meant to be a doctor.”

She was intrigued. Cabal had hated doctors, as long as she’d known him. “I didn’t know that. I thought you’d just picked up anatomy on the fly. I suppose you had Gray’s Anatomy memorised while you were in short pants?” He nodded absently, didn’t even correct her guess at his age. It wasn’t worthy of notice, by his standards. 

He returned down her calf to the ankle and started over again. Leonie was more than happy to let him continue. His hands felt odd, moving over her stocking. The nylon didn’t hold the heat, so the warmth of his touch was followed by an abrupt coolness. His hands were careful, and it felt almost like he was being gentle. 

Cabal’s hands moved in slow, firm strokes, pressing and releasing the strained muscle. The simple pleasure of the easing pain was rising up through her body in a low, slow pulse. Her hem was a few inches from his hand. It fell mid-calf, and she couldn’t help picturing his hands slipping under it, maybe seeking out the spot just behind her knee where the muscles attach. Would he ask her to move her skirt so he could reach higher? Would he reach under it, as if it didn’t matter? She was aware that her knees were apart, and she could feel her chest rising and falling with her breath. His waistcoat brushed her toes when he leaned forwards. If she slid her foot just a little….

She looked at Johannes, to find he had been watching her. His gaze slid away, in that new way she didn’t like. “Ice and elevate.” And he rose, set her ankle on the footstool, and left the room. 

She heard the kitchen door open and close; he’d gone into the garden. Well, then. She could elevate her ankle in her bedroom. And maybe she could try to get this bizarre preoccupation with Cabal out of her system. She went upstairs, noticing the improvement in her leg and ankle. She closed the door behind her and went to her bed. 

***

Some time later, she returned downstairs. Cabal was eating his soup in the parlour and reading a journal article. She ate her soup. They finished their soup. They looked at each other. 

The house seemed very quiet, for a moment. 

Leonie’s eye fell on the chessboard, and she welcomed the diversion gratefully. “Would you care for a game?”

“Certainly.” Cabal set the board on the fireside table. He moved five pieces. 

It took her a moment to understand. “Really? Picking up where we left off?”

His eyebrow lifted. “Unless you would prefer to start a new game?” 

“No. This will do. I was playing white, then?”

“Yes. And….” He moved his rook. ‘Your turn.”

It added a layer of complexity. She hadn't the faintest idea what had been in her mind when she had planned her last move. This was going to be a struggle. She'd taught Tom, but she hadn't played someone of Cabal’s level since he'd disappeared. 

“What happened to the garden fairies?’ Partly she wanted to know, partly she was playing for time. “They weren't there when I went to the house.”

“Some of them might have died in the explosion. One hopes. The rest would have left when the wards fell.”

They played in silence, watching the pieces. She took a pawn and braced herself for the trap, but it didn't materialize the next turn, or the next. In fact, Cabal was tapping a finger on his knee in a way that betokened distraction. “Haven't you played since you left?” she asked. 

“Frequently. With Horst.”

She laughed. “Are you rusty, Cabal?”

But there was something else - something odd in his manner. He was his old self one minute, distracted and withdrawn the next. Maybe that's just how he was now. But. She thought he was avoiding her eyes.

Leonie knew she looked like the woman in Cabal’s laboratory. The one he had tried to save and failed. Horst had assured her, with his usual hyperbole, that the resemblance was striking. But Leonie wasn’t eighteen anymore; if it had once been true, it must be fading. Or was that worse, she mused? Seeing her age, while the girl never would. 

She hoped her guess was wrong. If her face was paining Cabal, there was nothing she could do about it. 

He took a knight after that, forcing her to keep a closer eye on the board. She felt old habits of mind come back to her, as his acuity forced her to plan and counterplan. Her defence took on coherence and strength, but she was unable to gain the offensive, and the game settled into the attrition that was Cabal’s favoured approach. He truly wasn't rusty, but he didn't seem properly focussed on the game, either. She tried to engage him again. “Is all your research in the lab these days?”

He stood as if he needed to stretch, or get away from the chair that faced hers. He walked around the room, looking at the pictures and mementoes. “Less and less, as I exhaust the conventional approaches.”

“And the unconventional ones?”

“Require unconventional materials.”

“Back to your old tricks, then?”

He shrugged and toyed with a clumsy clay statue Leonie had made in school. “When nothing else will serve.” 

“Does Horst help you?” 

“Not in the lab, of course, but he has been a great help in the field. I have once or twice encountered other vampires, and they do not like it when mortals pry into their secrets. Besides. If there is not a fresh dance craze every month, he gets bored.”

Leonie snorted. But she was glad to hear Horst still cared about dancing and silly things. She missed him, suddenly. She hoped he was all right. It was good he'd had Johannes to keep him company. 

He continued. “And when a manananggal went for my heart, I was glad he was there.” Cabal was distracted; he was straightening the alignment of the pictures on the mantelpiece. 

“It certainly picked the wrong place to attack you. Are you really certain you have one?” And as soon as she said it, she could have kicked herself. He did have one, even if it wasn’t easily identified as such, and after everything he’d been through she didn’t think he’d need reminding. But she’d never have expected what he did next.

He looked straight at her. He undid a cufflink, slowly, slowly, and offered his wrist. “Check for yourself.” 

Leonie returned his challenging look with a hint of wariness. She stood, took the two paces towards him, reached out, and pressed the exposed wrist between his shirt cuff and palm.  It was sinewy and warm.  She didn't know why she kept expecting Cabal to be cold-blooded. They had both forgotten the chessboard.

She knew the arm and hand.  This hand had yanked her out of danger and steadied her when her balance was precarious.  It had defended her on more than one occasion.  She had stitched it up once or twice.  She may have even taken Cabal's pulse before.  So why did it seem so freighted now? 

Well, she had scientifically established this much; Cabal had a pulse.  It was a trifle quick.  As was hers.  She looked up at his face, and he looked down at her.  She could have sworn his eyes were drawn to her mouth.  They were very close. The room was unnaturally quiet, as if they were wrapped in something warm and invisible that deadened sound. His pulse beat under her fingertips. He watched her.  

“Why aren't you pulling away?" Leonie wondered aloud, and then realised she’d spoken. 

And with an uncommon softness in his precise, accented, voice he asked, “were you counting on that?" 

She wanted to take another step closer. She wanted to put her hands on his waistcoat. She wanted to kiss Johannes Cabal; not some fantasy in her head, the genuine article, right here. But she had expected him to pull away by now, and yes, perhaps she had been counting on that. He moved - just a fraction of an inch - but it startled her, and she dropped his wrist and stepped back.  She left the room without looking at him again. 

 

***  
***

Horst hugged him, hard; Cabal had chosen a night train so his brother could see him off. They had called the all-aboard twice. “Have a safe journey.’ 

“It's not a dangerous trip.” 

“I have something for you.” Horst tapped his pockets until he found a jewellers’ case, too large for a ring. He extracted it and flipped it through the air at Johannes, who had to scramble to keep it from falling.

The irritated furrow between his brows eased when he opened the box. It was a pocket watch, silver, with a plain satin finish. Cabal had lost their father's in the destruction of the house. He had bought a serviceable replacement on the journey to Pasiná, but this was obviously better-made.

“I thought you could use one with some style,’ Horst said. He was excited. “Since you don't carry the stick anymore. Open it!”

Cabal shot him a glance. “It doesn't have some puerile pornographic scene inside, does it?’ He removed it from the cushioning and pressed the catch for the lid. “Because…’. And he fell silent.

The watch face was simple: black numbers on white enamel, and undemonstrative hour, minute, and second hands. But the interior of the lid was engraved with a vignette. A woman, draped _à la grecque_ , was held in the respectful embrace of a skeleton. A curve of cheek and a flash of smile were visible behind the tempest of her hair. They were dancing. Beneath their graceful feet Cabal read the sundial’s warning: _tempus fugit_. 

“Do you like it?” Horst was proud.

Cabal took a moment to reply, his eyes on the details of the tiny scene: the woman's hand resting on her partner’s clavicle; his bare skull inclining to her face. He closed the lid. It made a satisfying click. “ _Der Tod und das Mädchen_. Subtle, aren't you?’ Cabal relented. “Yes. I do like it. Thank you, brother.” 

And there was no reason why the terse thanks should have put a lump in Horst's throat.

“I don't have a gift for you. But I will see you again soon.”

“I hope so. Time flies, little brother. For you, if not for me.” Horst smiled to take the sting from his words, shook Johannes’ hand warmly, and walked into the night, waving farewell over his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot tell you how encouraging I've found your comments. Thank you so much!


	9. Some background

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabal stews; Leonie attempts to distract herself; they meet in a hallway.

I would meet you upon this honestly.  
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom  
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.  
I have lost my passion: why should I need to keep it  
Since what is kept must be adulterated?  
I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch:  
How should I use it for your closer contact?”

T. S. Eliot, _Gerontion_

 

Cabal awaited Leonie's return. He did not pretend even to himself that he was doing anything else. Within ten minutes he heard her quick tread on the stair, and when she stopped in the doorway of the parlour, she was dressed to go out. “I'm heading over to Tom’s for the evening. I’ll be back by ten for our excursion. Help yourself to the kitchen for supper.” 

He blinked. “By all means, go. Ask him if he’s shot at us lately.” 

“That’s ridiculous and insulting, so no, I don’t think I will.”

“As you prefer, of course. Heaven forbid Tom be made uncomfortable.” He picked up his scientific journal. 

Leonie hesitated in the door. “What was that earlier? Why did you ask me if I was waiting for you to move away?”

“It was nothing. A misunderstanding.” The words tasted bitter.

“All right.’ She swallowed and took a breath. “It’s odd, having you back suddenly like this. I’m taking some time to get used to it, and I don’t think I’m quite myself. While you do still owe me a better explanation, I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable. At any point.”

Uncomfortable? What was she talking about? He cleared his throat. “You haven’t given me any offence, except, of course, for the usual insults, willful ignorance, and oatmeal. None of which made me particularly uncomfortable.”

Leonie smiled faintly. “All right then. Let’s finish the game tomorrow morning.” She was gone. 

***

 

“After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”  
T. S. Eliot, _Gerontion_

 

Cabal sat in his room and stewed.

For most of his life, he had not understood the general public's obsession with the erotic. He understood the evolutionary purpose, of course, but for years he had watched Horst run through shallow sensual entanglements faster than fashions in neckwear. The appeal had never been clear to him. It took a great deal of time and effort and… for what, really? Some transitory pleasure? 

He wasn't immune - he had the relevant glands and chemicals - but it had not been a difficult urge for him to ignore during the years of his necromantic researches. He was rarely in the company of others, let alone anyone he found bearable, and he had never been particularly drawn to strangers.  Entertaining carnal thoughts while he dedicated himself to the resurrection of the woman he loved would have felt disloyal. Then, one day, he found himself able to check that theory. And yes, it had felt disloyal. 

1.  
“Cabal, they're coming.  Cabal!”

Cabal stared.  

Leonie wore a fine chain with a pendant that sat two inches below her collarbone.  The pendant brushed the exact point at which Leonardo da Vinci, when drawing a perfectly proportioned Vitruvian woman, might have pencilled a line marking the spot beyond which a man's attention was not supposed to wander.  

Time had paused, and he had realised he wanted to pick up the pendant, move it to the side, bend down, and put his lips to the spot where it had been resting, and then proceed downward, tracing his lips over her skin, inhaling her fragrance.  The bizarrerie of it had not entirely sunk in when, thankfully, he had been distracted by an immediate threat to life and limb. 

 _Wonderful_ , he had thought while running away.   _I have a 'type'.  Tall, strong-willed, intelligent, and hair like assassin's gold._  It would never do, and neither would this tendency towards simile.  He disciplined his mental rhetoric. 

 

2.  
He did not mistake this feeling for love.  He respected and admired Miss Barrow.  She was also, it had suddenly occurred to him, an attractive woman.  He just had to keep his head.

It was difficult, at first.  She would take his arm.  She would grab his shoulders and haul him out of the path of a missile.  She would pat his hand, laughing, and a thrill would pass along his nerves, always ending in the same place. 

 Later it was not difficult, it was torture.  He had seen her - if he was honest, he would say ‘watched her’ - sleep at Pompeii.  He had lost perhaps thirty seconds in her peaceful face, her even breathing, the exposed curve of her throat falling away to her collarbone, the gentle swell of her….   He had turned away and concentrated on the stab of guilt in his gut.  He retreated to the other end of the room, seeking a  sleep that did not come.  

 

3.   
It didn't go away. The flash in her eyes while she mocked him sparked something in his amygdala.  He experienced a humiliatingly unsubtle throb of lust when she nibbled on a pen.  She tapped it against her lower lip, and she almost caught him staring, lower jaw unmoored, brain a swirling _Moskstraumen_ of erotic thoughts. She bandaged him after a dog bite; her breath was warm on his skin, and he pretended to despise her skill just to get her away so he could discipline his increasingly apparent reactions to her closeness.

He ignored it. It was disturbing - no, it was the tortures of the damned, and he had seen souls in Hell that looked calmer about their situation - but it meant nothing. 

 

4.  
Zarenyia found out, of course, and started to slip little allusions into conversation.  He cornered her, face thunderous, after she'd made a particularly broad joke and Leonie had looked up, confused. 

“Oh, darling, you mean she can't tell?’ Zarenyia was discombobulated by the idea of such ignorance. “I mean, you're absolutely gagging for it. It’s pitiful, and it's making me hungry. You're sure she doesn't know?’  An idea occurred.  “You know, you and I could…”

Cabal interrupted.  “No, she doesn't know, and neither does Horst, and… and pretend you don't.  And no, thank you for the offer, but _no_.”  

“But it's you I'm worried about!  Leonie is very well satisfied by that young blonde person, but you just sit around working and not doing anything enjoyable.  Why don't you ask her to bed, or even to that nice little alcove we passed a few minutes ago?  Or - oh, such fun - I could ask her for you!  I know she'd say yes if I asked her, I'm much nicer to her than you are.”

Cabal schooled himself to patience. “I don't want to have relations with Miss Barrow.”

“But you do, you know!’  She tilted her head in her pained sincerity. “You're all wrought up, and your blood pressure goes all specific whenever she touches you or bends over or _anything_.  Darling, if I poked you, you'd pop.”

He looked her in the eye and said in a harsh undertone, “I do _not_ want to!” The moment held, and Zareniya’s reluctant nod acknowledged his seriousness.  

She slumped a little.  “I don't understand this at all.”

“It is in no way necessary that you understand,' he snapped. He heard himself and softened his tone. “I don't expect you to.  It's personal.”

“It's very human.’  She was a bit put out.  

“If you say so.”

“But look, Johannes, I could make it ever so simple for both of you. I wouldn't even insist on joining in, if you didn't like the idea….”

“No.  We are not discussing this further.  You will not tell Leonie, you will not hypnotize Leonie, you will not drug Leonie to subvert her will - and you are not to hypnotize, drug, or expose me, verbally or otherwise.”

Zarenyia grunted at this wholesale annihilation of her plans, but she agreed. “But I'll tell you this, and don't forget it, darling…’ she bent down from her height to whisper into Cabal’s ear.  “Our little lion is splendid.  Really gets into the spirit of the thing, which makes one feel so appreciated.  She sort of growls when -’  She straightened with an impish look at his wide-eyed expression.  “Oh.  There you go again.  It's not healthy, Johannes.”

But she didn't interfere, and she stopped teasing him in front of Leonie.  When Leonie was out of the room or facing a different direction, she teased him mercilessly, of course, but he ignored the filthy gestures, swooning expressions, and the occasions when she helpfully extended her palate-fang and wagged an eyebrow in Leonie’s direction.  Devils would be devils.  

 

5.  
Years later, his unhappy experiences on the continent had done nothing to change his mind about erotic persuits.  He remembered that time with disgust now, mostly directed at himself, and he had been grateful to return to celibacy.  He wondered if the interest, if not the capability, had been burnt out of him for good, now. 

In this frame of mind, he had returned to England.  He had been thinking about whether Leonie was angry (the answer had been yes), whether she would help him with the book (also yes, apparently), and whether she might welcome his return; Cabal felt that  was yet to be determined.  He had hoped… he had wanted to be around her again, if she would allow it. He didn't know what that would look like.  Perhaps they might live closer to each other this time. 

 

6.  
But then, at Soanes’ house.   She had raised the inside of her wrist to her mouth, the pale pink of her lips closing around the spot to almost conceal the swipe of her tongue over the drops of stinging chocolate.  He’d had a strong, almost hallucinatory, flash of catching her hand, sucking the droplets away before she could.  He had gone still, staring, as he pictured kissing the soft hollow of her elbow, brushing higher with his lips, hearing her laughter turn to gasps of pleasure.…  He had pulled his gaze away to find Soanes’ eyes on him, hard and knowing.  

Yes, he loathed Soanes, but he also felt ashamed.  It was indecent to be thinking such things with her right there, indecent to be thinking them at all, when their association was barely civil. 

 

7.

But once awoken, the preoccupation was hard to escape.  His throat went dry when she leaned over him in the car to get her gun from the glove box.  He focussed on memorizing its contents instead of looking at the shadowed shoulder and the thin strap of an undergarment revealed by the way her blouse gaped from her chest.  Being near her, seeing her, hearing her voice, smelling the tea rose soap on her skin, any random detail might send him into a… an amative trance. He wanted to touch her.  He wanted to press his body against hers, to pull her down into bed with him.  It obsessed him until he was exasperated with his own besottedness.  

That cretin Soanes didn't understand anything about her, with his _Kitty_   and his…. Cabal searched for further flaws.  His… farm. 

Cabal envied him fiercely.  What would it be like to have Leonie Barrow arrive on one's doorstep, all straight back, smart mouth, and withering glare, simply because you pleased her?  That dullard knew.  But Cabal didn’t and wouldn’t.  He'd heard his drawbacks from her own mouth: he was insensitive, violent, undemonstrative, morally deficient.  Was she wrong, by her standards?

Yet, he wanted her so badly he couldn't admit the obvious; that ass of a farmer was what she wanted, and he was only torturing himself.  Like that mad impulse that had made him dare her to take his pulse earlier.  She had stepped closer than she had to, and he had fought to keep his breath steady when she put two fingers firmly on the vein.  Anything seemed possible until she spoke.  “Why aren't you moving away?”  It was true, he would have, once upon a time.  He would have gone off to his lab or found some other excuse to leave her until the fever lifted.  Or said something impossibly rude. She had been so close he could see her eyelashes, the tiny hairs that strayed around her ears.  He had moved, and the spell was broken.  Then his courage had failed, when she’d asked him why.

He hoped the excursion to acquire the book would tire him. If it didn't, he would lie in bed, thinking.  He could control his actions, but his mind had become unruly, full of images and fantasies that disturbed and compelled him.  In his mind he was in her four-poster bed, her legs were wrapped around him, and she growled in her pleasure.  He shuddered at the idea.

And yet.  One would not simply ‘love and leave’ Leonie Barrow: the idea was ridiculous.  There would ramifications to consider, despite this second adolescence that had gripped him.  Though honestly, even his first adolescence hadn't been anything like this.

The house was full of her, though she must be at Soanes' by now. His mind suggested then ruthlessly blanked out the memory of the farmhouse bedroom.  It was a large, prosperous place, well-kept and well-situated.  Too large for one man.  Didn't farmers want big families?  Weren't most men married by his age?  And yet Leonie still lived in her own home.  Did that mean she wanted her independence?  He sighed.  The implications were beyond him.

He steeled himself.  Leonie the leonine would not be happy tending a farmer's brats, quilting, and threshing the harrows, or whatever farm wives did.  He had seen her take the head off a Deep One with a harpoon gun.  He clung to that comforting memory in the middle of much that was strange and disturbing to him. 

There was no hope, and yet, the thought was some consolation.

Johannes Cabal sat in his pastel guest room and stared at the wall that separated him from Leonie's bedroom.  He should find something to distract himself, read over some notes or plan an experiment. Horst needed him, and as supportive as he would be of Cabal's preoccupation, there was work to be done.

***

Leonie drove through the hills. The sun was low in the sky, and she dipped into and out of shadow as the roads and horizon rose and fell.  

She made herself think clearly.  Why was she so wrought up about Cabal?  Was it just the excitement he brought, the promise of risk?  Maybe she should move away from Penlow, travel, find new work that would stretch her capabilities.  Maybe it was time for that.  

Maybe her feelings had nothing to do with him.  She needed professional challenges, that was all.  Yes, it was true that she watched the way his waistcoat hugged his body and loved the sound of his chiding voice and wondered what he would look like with a smile for once in his stern, miserable life…. 

Leonie put her head back and groaned at the windscreen.  This was dreadful.  This wasn’t fair to Tom.  He had hinted about marriage, about children, ye gods, and she was taking Johannes Cabal's pulse for nonmedicinal reasons and daydreaming about his bloody _smile_.  She must see Tom. That would get her head straight.

***

She caught him during the washing-up phase, and his clean undershirt and damply curling hair were a welcome sight.  He seemed equally happy to see her.  “Kitten!”  Whatever he was going to say next was lost as Leonie wrapped her arms around him.

“I'm sorry, Tom.  I just wanted to see you.  Friends?”  

Tom’s bed was broad, covered with quilts his mother had sewn.  She almost chased him into it.  Her efforts may have been fuelled by a nebulous guilt, but she wasn't being unfaithful.  Her mother might not have approved of her methods, but she'd never know.  Here she was, with the man to whom she had plighted her troth and for whom she had forsaken all others, if not precisely married.  

He was perfectly lovely.  She loved his sun-browned arms and hands, the competent spread of his hands, his air of certainty in everything he did.  Look, here they were, entwined, two hearts beating as… 

But she couldn't stop wondering.  What had been behind that scene with Cabal earlier?  His reply had been vague.  Had it been - drat, no, focus on the present, Barrow.  The present was very nice, with Tom’s broad shoulders to hang on to in a delirium of…. Except it wasn't really a delirium, was it?  A delirium would have been nice, and she was very excited, but she was thinking of Johannes again, remembering his face drawn with strain or peaceful in repose. The mouth warm on her skin was not his, the curls tickling her face weren’t his disciplined gilt hair.  What would this be like if he….  No.  This was far worse than staying home.  All of a sudden she felt sick.

“Tom… Tom, darling, stop.  I'm sorry, I can't….”

He withdrew from her hurriedly.  “What is it, lovvie?  Did I hurt you?  Are you well?”  His concern made her feel twice as dreadful.

“No, no, I'm fine, I just….”  He waited.  Anxious at first, then confused, and then worried.  “I'm sorry,’ she said weakly.  “I just didn't feel quite right.”  He coaxed her down to lie on his shoulder, and she went gratefully.  It was only a brief reprieve.  

“I'd feel better, lass, if you told me his wasn't anything to do with your houseguest.”

She was caught.  Because it was, wasn't it?  Seeing Cabal again had made her furious and glad and very sad, and it was hard to explain any of that to Tom.  She couldn't even deny that she was…. That she had felt some kind of…..

She wouldn't lie to him, not even by implication.  “He might have something to do with it.’  Her next words would have seemed like a non-sequitur to a stranger.  “You’re waiting for me to come to my senses and realize that I’ve always wanted, like any woman of sense, to be a farm wife.  Aren’t you, Tom?”

He gently put her from him and sat up on the bed, bracing himself for the conversation.  “You would be a good one, Kit.”

She sighed and flopped back against a pillow.  “Tom, I would be a terrible farm wife, because I wouldn’t enjoy it.  Locked up out here, while you work the farm?  I’d hardly see you more than now.”

“I wasn’t planning to chain you to the stove, Kitty.” 

“That’s not what I mean.  Being the mistress of this place would be a job in itself, especially with a family.  I wouldn't be able to go into town to teach during the week, not with the chores and the roads the way they are in the winter.”

“Would that be so bad?  I’ve heard you say a dozen times you’d like to chuck it in at the university.”

“Yes.  And no.  And not for the farm.’  His face lengthened.  Was he only understanding that now?  “I’ve never made a secret of that,’ she said, trying not to sound defensive.  “It’s not what I want, though it’s a good life, and I do - and I am fond of you.  But,’ and she sighed heavily. “I don't know.  I never planned to come back to Penlow, not to live.  But dad got sick.  I love the house, and I fell for you and got a job, and….”

“And now seeing one of your old friends makes you think you’re stuck.”

She half-nodded.  That was part of it.  There was more to it than that, but she shied away from explaining it.  It was too inarticulate and new to share with anyone.  

He sighed harshly.  “I could see there was something coming.’  He stopped and seemed to be choking something down.  “Well, that’s that, then,’ he said, as kindly as he could.  “You’d better run home, Leonie.  Maybe we’ll talk in a few days.  I'll not be the one to drag you down.” 

“I'm sorry, Tom.  You didn’t drag me down.  Haven’t.  But I'll think the same in a few days.  If you want someone to run the house, that's not me.”  Her voice caught on her tears.  It had been a nice idea, for a while.

***

Cabal was doodling instead of taking notes.  He had just realised they were the floral sprigs on Leonie's blouse when he heard the lock turn and the back door open and slam.  He heard a jingle as her key ring fell, and a catch in her voice as she cursed.  Something was wrong.  She stamped up the stairs, and he went to the door of his room to meet her.  He tried to look bored.

"You know, Cabal, I'm starting to think you have the right idea.  No attachments, no ties.  It’s too much complexity.  Too many people to disappoint." 

Cabal looked at her as if she was speaking gibberish.   

“What happened?”

“None of your business, that's what happened.’  She clutched a hand in her hair and leaned against her doorframe.  “But Tom wants me to be his mother, and the university wants me to be a clever kind of nanny, and my neighbours want me to be Frank Barrow’s daughter all the time, and you….”  

She searched for something sufficiently withering.  She couldn’t find it. Cabal had... he had... they had argued a lot. But he'd never tried to put her in her place, or shape her into someone else he wanted. Really, Cabal had never wanted her to be anything but herself.  The thought felt like a revelation.

Cabal was totally unprepared when Leonie kissed him.   

He didn’t even have time to flinch away.  Her warm breath travelled over his cheek, his open lips, and then her mouth was on his.  

The kiss was bright and hot and it blinded him.  Her lips were warm, then wet.  She was pressing herself against him, her breasts soft on his chest, her knee between his, and the contact set lightning dancing along his nerves to his stomach and down.  Her hands reached inside his coat, around his waist, and wherever she touched him it was like she was stroking across his bare skin.  

After a second or two of stunned acceptance he understood what was happening.  His arms enclosed her and pulled her close, and he returned her kiss with complete certainty.  Did life really work like this, sometimes?  Was there random grace as well as pain?  His arms closed tight around her in a moment of convulsive happiness and his soul was cheering like an idiot, and just like that her hands were on his chest and she was pushing him away.  

He let her go, struggling to keep  _au courant_  with events.   

He was aghast to see her eyes were full of tears.  Her voice hitched on a stream of words.  "I'm sorry, please forget that.  I'm not well, I'm having a difficult day...." 

Crying.  He had often ignored it when Leonie cried, both unwilling and unable to respond.  She had never seemed to expect anything else.  But life was changing.  He searched for words and, for a miracle, found them.  "Tell me." 

She smiled and snorted a laugh.  “Cabal, please.  You don’t care about my man troubles.” 

"I do care.  Leonie..." 

A wry smile raised her lips under the tears that still flowed from her eyes.  “So that's what it takes for you use my first name.” 

"Leonie."  Because she still stood close, almost touching him, he slowly brought his arms around her, watching for any hesitation or drawing away.  But she leaned into his body, turned her face into his shoulder, and clutched his back.  With Leonie Barrow's arms tight around him, he felt the most profound sense of achievement he had known since he had found a solution to the coagulation problem, seven years ago.  

He held her gently as she shuddered with a few tears.  He did not reach for a further intimacy, though he was barraged by unfamiliar desires.  He wanted to kiss her forehead, stroke her hair as one would comfort a child, kiss her lips as slowly and carefully as he had embraced her.  He did not.  

He could be trusted.  He swore it to himself and to her with his still, steady support.  

Two minutes was a very long time, but not long enough.  Leonie broke away first.  "Ah.  Thank you, Cabal."  She patted his shoulder as if she didn't know what to do with her hands.  "Tom and I are having some troubles.’  She stepped back. “Actually, I think I won’t be seeing him anymore.  Or maybe he won’t be seeing me anymore.  It's so obvious, now.  I feel like a bit of a fool.”

She went into her bedroom without a backward glance and shut the door.

What did it mean that he worried about her now, wondered if she was crying alone in her room, even had the ghost of an impulse to go out to Soanes’ farm and demand he make Leonie happy again? (Provided, of course, he was not the one threatening him and endangering Leonie, in which case Cabal thought he'd make an exception to the no-murders rule).  The fitful little thing died without ever gaining much traction, but wasn't the very idea at odds with the desires he had been experiencing?

He rapped on her door to gain her attention.  “We leave at half ten.  Be ready.”  He went downstairs quickly, not wanting to hear any invitations or replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technical difficulties aside, I couldn't keep that chapter to myself any longer. I hope you enjoyed Zarenyia - I didn't originally plan for her to make an appearance, but you just can't have a party without her, and _of course_ she'd notice. And want to 'help.'
> 
> I'm going to have to replace my old computer - this will, again, delay the next chapter. But given the mercilessness of my obsession with this story, expect chapters to keep coming, if a bit more slowly. We have a couple of chapters, I think, before the larger gaps in my draft start.


	10. Stepping over a line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theft and greater risks.

Do I dare  
Disturb the universe?  
In a minute there is time  
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. 

T.S. Eliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_

 

The drive over had been nearly silent. Leonie was thinking about the kiss. Cabal was thinking about the kiss.

Leonie felt guilty, first of all. She had gone directly from Tom’s bed to throwing herself at Johannes. Bad form. But it hadn't felt that way. She had been with Tom for so long, and it had ended so suddenly, with a sort of whimper. She had been upset – she had allowed Tom to think too much of their relationship, and she felt badly about that. She always hated breaking up with men, even ones who felt less deeply than Tom. She would miss him, but if the bloody farm was more important to him, then… that was his choice. And it was fine with her. It was a bit deflating to realise how fine it was, really.

But last night she had come home in a welter of sadness and guilt and frustrated lust, and run smack into Cabal, and she'd....

That kiss. After he was over the shock, that had not been a dutiful kiss; he had responded with characteristic, well, energy. And focus. Even, she thought, eagerness. The memory heated her blood even now, while she navigated the hairpin turn at Smith’s Farm. She'd pushed him away because she suddenly felt like she was in over her head, drowning.

She was even more confused about what had happened next. She swallowed. She remembered the strength of his arms. He'd let her go the instant she'd withdrawn. She remembered the quiet way he'd said her name, the gentle comfort of his arms around her. How still he'd been, how careful. She couldn't forget it. 

Cabal sat in the passenger seat, his mind nowhere near the drive or their objective for the night. He was working on committing something to memory. She had been upset, and he had comforted her, more or less successfully. This kind of information was difficult for him to remember, but he wanted to be able to do that again. In retrospect, he was confused to find that he had said almost nothing. He hadn't even learned exactly what was wrong or offered a solution. 

And she had kissed him.

He tried not think about the kiss. He didn't have the time to think about it now. He also didn't think about the accidental glimpse he'd had of Leonie in her dressing gown that morning. He had just enough perspective left to realise it was not inherently an erotic sight; the robe was a great hairy brown garment that might have belonged to her father. He had seen her in dresses that revealed more. That self-reproof didn't help, because his excellent memory began replaying pictures of her in those dresses, and….

For heaven's sake. Think of something else. So far as he could tell, she'd had a falling-out with Soanes. Whether it was a minor or a major one, he didn't know, and for some reason asking was difficult. But it had upset her. What if the man had broken her heart? That dampened his mood sufficently.

His eyes narrowed as he stared out, unseeing, at the black countryside. He brooded on suitable punishments. Then again, Leonie herself had already delivered the most subtle and cruel consequence. If Mr. Soanes didn't yet know what it was like to live without Leonie Barrow, he was about to find out.

He remembered his flat in Pasiná. It had been a very suitable arrangement. It was located over an industrial place of business, with more than sufficient space for him and his growing library and lab. Odd noises and smells could be explained away by the workshop below, and it was rarely occupied after seven in the evening. But in his memory it was narrow and airless, and sound fell dead. 

***

The house was dark from the front. They walked behind a veil of trees and tall plants; recent additions to the gardens, surrounded by raw earth.  
It was large, considering the modest gentry who had built it. The facade was of local stone, punctuated in the last century with a portico for arriving carriages. The back had also been remodelled: its length glittered with glass, generous windows interspersed with French doors. Half the width was taken up by a library.

“Let's check around the servant's entrance,” Leonie whispered.

“Stay here.” And Cabal headed off to do it alone. Might he be sparing her ankle?

“If you're not back in six years,' she stage-whispered, “I'm leaving.”

***  
***

“We got it!” Leonie crowed as they came through the door of the Barrow house. 

“Hardly a challenge,” Cabal reproved, but his voice was light, and he patted the volume with satisfaction. 

“Oh, shut up. I can't believe we were almost caught by Mr. Pendrith. I wonder if he really was armed.”

“Your friend said all the staff would be in bed.”

“She didn't promise to chain them there. Maybe he patrols the place in the night, or was going down to the kitchens to get a biscuit. I just barely got it off the shelf in time. It was stuck.” It was an unremarkable book, except for the padded leather covers. It was half cushion, half-book, Leonie thought, beautifully soft to the fingers.

It was unthinkable to go to bed immediately. She was still flying on the adrenaline from their near-miss, even if all they’d escaped was a reluctant family retainer with a fowling-piece. "Tea?”

“Have you any wine?” 

“Sherry.” She did cook with it, but it was very drinkable. She wouldn’t spoil good cooking with bad sherry. 

He made a face. “Better than nothing.”

She brought out the bottle on a tray with two glasses, which she put on the table between the two fireside chairs. She returned to his earlier comment. “You’d have been happier if we’d been ambushed by some horrible thing from beyond, I know. Well I’m sorry, this is only Penlow. We don’t run to such cosmopolitan entertainments.”

“Hardly entertainments.” 

“At the time… no. But in retrospect, some of them weren’t so bad.’ She saw his incomprehension and clarified her statement. “The things from beyond were horrible, yes. No debate there. But the near-misses and the travelling and clawing our way out of whatever awful situation you'd landed us in: it wasn't so bad.”

Cabal snorted as he stretched in his chair. “You remember those events with more affection than I do.” 

“Do I really? I thought you quite relished some of it. I know, your precious lab, a serious scientist, blah blah blah. But you always rose to the occasion: shooting, stabbing, running, concocting high explosives on the fly.’ She reflected briefly. “Keeping me in one, uneaten piece.”

“I didn’t do any of that because I enjoyed it.” 

Leonie laughed. “Cabal, I’m hurt.’ 

“You are intentionally mistaking….”

“Yes, fine. But to pursue my point, if we’re going to compose a list of the things you do simply because you enjoy them, it would trail off sharply after ‘cake at tea.’ Let’s see. Chess.’ She stared blankly for a moment. “Eating out…. Oh! Saying withering things to people you don’t like.’ She was counting them off on her fingers. “Shooting them.” She searched for something else.

“Are you quite finished?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I am. I didn’t even need to use a second set of fingers. I hope you’ve developed some new interests in the past six years, Cabal.”

“Yes. I did.” Had that been a wince? 

“Anyway, was it such a misery? I've missed it sometimes.” Her heart was in her mouth.

“As did I. It wasn’t a misery.” Cabal gazed into the depths of his sherry as if a cure for vampirisim was hidden in the etched scrollwork of the rim.

Leonie presented her glass. She felt a warmth for which the wine could not account. “To the unstoppable team of Barrow and Cabal.’ After a moment he lifted his glass a few inches to chime against hers. 

They sat in silence, and the tension of the adventure ebbed from her body. Leonie raised her head from a half-drowse. “Well. Time for us to go to bed, I think.” 

There was silence from the other chair: so lengthy a silence that Leonie turned, expecting to find Cabal asleep already, knocked out by fatigue and three tablespoons of sherry. But no, he was awake, staring fixedly at the wall. “Cabal? I said, I’m going to sleep now.”

“Yes.” He, oddly, drained his empty glass. 

She returned from tidying away the glasses, extinguishing the lights as she came. She found him in the hallway, fussing with the contents of his bag. He glanced up at her and then averted his eyes. Again. What was the matter with the man? The hall lamp cast his face into shadow. She wished she could see his expression more clearly. Was it grief? Anger? 

It occurred to her with an unwelcome jolt that he would leave tomorrow. He would leave Penlow, maybe England. Nothing was guaranteed from here. He opened the roll of surgical tools and stared at them as if he’d forgotten what he was doing.

She took another step towards him. He didn't look up. Her skin prickled, as if she was close to an electrical storm. She sighed, without meaning to, and he looked up to see her staring at him. He didn’t look away, but his jaw set, she saw with a pang. She realised how much he had been silent: not as if he had more important matters on his mind, but like he was avoiding something. She made herself ask. “Is it very difficult, how much I look like her?”

Whatever he had been expecting her to say, that wasn’t it. He was startled into the voice she didn’t hear often: without sarcasm, without stiffness or irritation. “No. Not anymore. You look like yourself, to me.” 

She hadn’t meant her next words to sound like an appeal, but they did. “Then why can't you look at me, Johannes?”

***

Cabal’s head spun. He had nearly shaken off the confusion from Leonie’s very ordinary, very platonic, very un-suggestive recommendation that they to go bed. Separately. To sleep. Nothing to do with the way she had kissed him earlier, just up those stairs. Then, this masterpiece of incomprehension, suggesting he _couldn’t look at her_. As if he hadn’t spent the last two days prying his eyes from her face, from her body, and trying to hide the fact. 

Cabal had been learning, slowly and exhaustingly, that others found it unpleasant when he pointed out their incomprehension of the situation. This was a price he was generally happy to pay, but not now. He did not reply with a crisp “idiot.” This was a sensitive situation. He had read about these. He would be careful. 

“Of course I can look at you.’ He spelled it out in words of one syllable. He felt rather than saw her ironical eyebrow. In fact, his eyes had dropped to his hands, mechanically checking and repacking the contents of his bag. His heartbeat felt like it was shaking his entire body. He had become strangely aware of the sound of his voice in his ears. He was leaving tomorrow. She had kissed him. He would say it. “Looking away is the problem.”

“Oh.’ And that was all. 

He didn’t know what he’d hoped she’d say. 

He would leave. But he would wait a moment, first, so he didn't have to watch the understanding spread over her face. How dare he. Or, worse, poor Johannes. He would wait until she could control it. He kept his eyes on the handful of bullets he was counting. She spoke, and he immediately lost count. “Tom said….” Her voice was small. 

She crossed the floor in three determined strides, and as he raised his head, she raised one hand and pulled his bloodless lips down to hers. 

He had glanced up to find Leonie advancing on him. She raised her hand, and he debated taking the slap or evading it, but her fingers curved through his hair and oh…. Oh. Oh. _Mein Gott._

Oh disregarded deity. He felt that faint cheering from his soul again, at her fingers laced through his hair, her other hand warm on the skin of his neck, the instantly familiar smell of her, the immediate warmth of her body. The kiss went went on and on. She kissed him as if she wanted to. She moved fractionally against him, fitting them more closely together, and that provoked an immediate, near-painful response. His hand flattened on her waist, urging her into him, and he caught himself before he rocked his hips against her, a motion so instinctive and right that for a moment he didn’t connect it at all to - to anything he'd experienced before. 

She broke away from the kiss, and he was ready to apologise, to… but she just put her head on his shoulder and hugged him as hard as she could. Her breath was fast with desire just held in check, but she simply held him, and he heard the hitch of tears as she inhaled. He put a hand on her head, kissed her hair, and held on to her for dear life. Something cracked in Johannes Cabal. Something spilled out inside him. 

They stood like that for a long time, in some silent communication. She took a breath and disengaged herself. She might say anything now, and the hope and the terror washed out of the new rift inside him. He forgot to breathe. 

She said nothing, but her smile spoke volumes. Her smile, made from delight and just a little wickedness, went to his heart. And elsewhere. He knew what that look meant, now. He was wanted, just for himself, by the only woman who knew him, and who knew what that might mean to him. It meant forgiveness and acceptance and the highest honour he could imagine. It pierced him. 

And she did something wonderful and strange. She took his hand. He looked down at the touch in surprise: there was a small, odd pleasure in it, different from the ache of lust that shortened his breath. There was something childish in the way her hand softly and firmly folded around his, but it didn’t repel him. They were holding hands. He and Leonie were holding hands. And she pulled him towards the stairs. 

The room seemed to spin. He needed to lock himself in an empty room for a week and sort through every new emotion he’d experienced in the past two minutes. But. If that smile said she was eager for him (and to his wonderment, she was), he was starved for her. 

They went up the stairs as rapidly and efficiently as if a regiment of armed skeletons was on their heels. They stood at the door to her room. One of them had paused, there was no telling which. Once upon a time, he'd had a nightmare that started like this. It ended with him pulling away and everything turning to aspic and sliding away from him. But no, he reminded himself. This was permitted now. And thanks to certain experiences - which he would not think of now - he would not, at least, be an utter fumbling idiot. 

He whispered in her ear. “ _Fräulein_ , I do not normally wager: but I will make you _plead for mercy_ before sunrise.”

He felt her miss a breath. He was satisfied with the feeling of competence. She pulled back a few inches and gave him a curious look. “You have undiscovered depths, Cabal. What have you been doing with yourself?' She grinned. “But I'll take that bet.” 

He kissed her.


	11. For soul into the soul may flow,/ Though it to body first repair.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We are *earning* the explicit rating this chapter. Thoroughly. Consider yourself warned.

"Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,  
But yet the body is his book."

-John Donne, _The Ecstacy_

 

He had imagined, at one point, that he was going to be in control of these proceedings. How he had nurtured this delusion after so many years’ experience of Leonie Barrow was a mystery.

She grasped his wrist before he could loosen his cravat. “No,’ she said. He had a bewildered moment - had he misread the situation? - before she continued, “let me.” 

She stepped into his space deliberately, letting the air between them warm for a moment, before pressing a hot kiss to his neck. She undid the top button of his vest. She kissed him again, this time on the angle of his jaw, and undid another. She untied his cravat with such relish, it was nearly pornographic. She undid precisely two of his shirt buttons as if it was illegal and she wanted to enjoy it to the full before they dragged her off to prison. She was not undressing him, as he'd expected. She was disarranging him.

Under other circumstances it might have bothered him, like a cat having his fur stroked the wrong way. But for now, he was far from disliking the feel of her fingers dancing over his body, rumpling and undoing him. She didn't make him look ridiculous; just as if he had been working hard in his lab and had chosen comfort over precision. She pushed him into her reading chair and straddled his thighs, and his throat ran dry. She ran her fingers through his carefully combed hair, and he shivered and pulled her to him. She hid her grin by letting her forehead rest on his shoulder. “I have been wanting to do that for _years_. It suits you, you know.”

“It does?”

“Oh yes. If I took you outside like this, I'd have to go armed to protect your virtue.” This was a distracting idea, but not as distracting as Leonie's hands running over him, working on his buttons in earnest now. It was time to recapture the initiative. He pushed her backwards gently, and when she yelped and clung to him with arms and legs, he stood and carried her.

He laid her down on the bed and gathered her to him for a kiss. The kiss deepened, and her body pressed up against his. He drew his fingernails along her flank, he nipped at the side of her neck, and she shuddered and and grabbed at his bicep. He tried it again, a little farther down her neck, and she moaned. He loosened his trousers to ease the discomfort.

That moment of unbuttoning almost distracted her, but he continued to work his way down, by kiss and love- bite, to the spot where that damnable pendant had rested. Her blouse, blessed object, buttoned in the front. He undid the tiny pearl buttons and drew it aside, to reveal... he was mildly taken aback by the expanse of gored and reinforced undergarment thus bared. 

She laughed at the look on his face. But any sting he might have felt at her open amusement was lost in the abandonment of her laughter. Her fingers went lower on his stomach as she completed her conquest of his shirt-buttons, still breaking out in he occasional giggle. She pushed up the hem of his undershirt, running her hands over his chest and stomach as if he was a gift she had unwrapped. As if she was happy. The light in her eyes was almost like love.

Thwarted above by the hooks, eyes, and reinforced hems of her daunting undergarment, he ran light fingers up the backs of her thighs, and she forgot to giggle. Her eyes went unfocused, and her lips remained parted. He shifted his hands to explore the tops of her stockings and the perplexing arrangement of garter belt and drawers. Her rapid breathing and sudden immobility told him he had run across something she liked; she enjoyed the schoolgirlish thrill of his hand under her skirt, did she? He caressed her over her drawers, flirting with the hems, until they were both too heated to care for clothing. “Clothes,’ she gasped. “Fewer of them. Yours.” He complied, but not fast enough for Leonie, who had every thread off him in moments.

He thought that would be the cue for him to finish baring her, but she waved him off. She skimmed her hands along his chest and thighs, making him bite back a groan. She looked him over from throat to instep until he felt nearly self-conscious. Then he realised from the direction of her eyes what she was doing. She knew that scar, and could guess at that one, but….

“You didn’t have this one before,” Leonie said, drawing her finger through the air above a pink glossy line on his abdomen. And it was ridiculous, he thought, that his skin burned under the scar she hadn’t touched.

“That is still tender.”

“Just a bit of biochemistry, you said?”

“People will insist on keeping all the important reference books under lock.”

“Yes, but a lock didn’t do that.”

Cabal had acquired the scar from a barbed fleur-de-lys. He had broken his tailbone crashing to the ground below and spent a month sitting down gingerly, but she didn’t need to know that. He shrugged and hoped he looked mysterious. “But I know where you got this one.” And he brushed her hair away from the raised wrinkled line on her temple, watching her to see if she drew away. But she didn’t. As if she forgave him.

She met his eyes and gave a one-sided shrug. “I forget that’s there. I like to think it gives me a certain distinction.”

His scars were reminders of larceny, fevered self-defence, and crimes punishable by execution. Hers were records of courage: stands taken, friends defended, principles upheld. He kissed her, as if he could bridge the gap between them so easily. He tried to make it say that he was sorry, that he swore he knew better now, that he wouldn't be so stupid and careless again. “Undress.’ His eyes searched her face. “Please. Now.”

And she did. Her open blouse, first, then, slowly, her creased skirt joined it on the chair. She didn't make a game of it, just removed one item after another, carefully, and all while watching him. Watching him watching her. Her half-slip. Her belt and stockings. His eyes followed every move, every button, hook, and eye, every inch of flesh bared. If it wasn't for his breathing and the obvious fact of his arousal, she might have thought him clinical.

She undid her brassiere, and his eyes traced the way her breasts strained against it as she reached behind her back. She shot him a look, removed it - perhaps there was the hint of a tease there, as she bent towards him a little to work it off her arms. She undid the ribbon of her drawers and bent over gracefully to slide them down. He stood to join her, and he froze.

She stood there, bare, and it overwhelmed him. He was unable to move or speak. The intimacy of it, the perfection of her, his direct and predatory desires, his _feelings_ , it was too much, overload. Waves pounded at his control, and he closed his eyes. Leonie was going to think he was ill, or unwilling, but it was simply too much.

This had happened before. His liaison with Frau Grey had foundered on one such episode, and that had been a case of purely physical input, a sudden retreat from such stimuli and closeness with a stranger, and this was so much more. Leonie was going to think he was an idiot. He fought to calm himself, to regain control, but the harder he fought, the tighter it curled in upon itself. If he touched her, would he feel nothing, like with the others? He thought he might be able to sit down on the bed, if he really tried.

Gently, her arms came around his chest from behind. She held him. She waited, pressed against his back, her cheek over his spine, her hair tickling his neck. Warmth spread out from the places they touched. It loosened the tightness in his chest. His hands unfisted. The panic faded. 

It was going to be all right. This was Leonie Barrow, who was sensible and kind. He trusted her, and more than that, she was right to trust him. He could breathe. He could move.

He turned in her embrace to face her, and he found the brush of skin on skin enflaming rather than overwhelming. Their eyes met. She smiled again. “Cabal,’ she said. “It's only fair to tell you. I intend to ruin you for all other women. Forever. You are going to be haunted by this for years.’ She nodded sadly, a Cassandra giving a warning that would inevitably be ignored. “We proceed at your own risk.”

“Bold words, _Fräulein_.”

“What do you want, Cabal?” Her arms were laced around his neck now. His hands were at her waist, and his thumbs stroked her sides. There was a dare in her question. And behind that, perhaps some vulnerability.

He was at a loss for words. What did she want to know? That he wanted to say her given name again, shocking act of intimacy that it was? That he wanted her hands on him? That he wanted to see her face when she came, as she clenched around his body and cried out? That thought left him breathless. He hadn't given the list of his wants much thought, but now they were thronging around in a disorganised crowd. He found one thing that was indisputably true. “I want to make love to you.”

She looked surprised for a moment. She swallowed. Had that been the wrong thing to say? He knew Leonie Barrow as an ally, a fighter, a friend: knew her down to her bones. But in this one way they were total strangers. And then she smiled with a trace of shyness that hadn't been there before. “All right. We can arrange that.”

And in the fever of kisses and touches that followed, one thing became clear; this was different from everything he had done before, because it was her. It was that simple. Every bit of instruction and information he had stored in a haze of self-debasement was now eagerly applied. When she pressed herself into his touch, when his mouth on her breasts drove her frantic, he blessed every deadening minute he had put himself through.

Eventually, she dragged him onto the bed by main force. She didn't know it, but he would have followed her without the manhandling. Being more than a hand’s breadth away was impossible. She pulled him down on top of her, and she was so wet it made sounds when she moved, loud, explicit sounds. She lay back on the bed, splayed in blatant invitation. He wanted to cover her with his body, sink his cock into her, make her gasp with pleasure as he possessed her. His cock jumped at the idea. He could do it. But he could do better than that. He moved down her body.

Leonie’s head popped up from the bed. “Cabal?”

***

“Yes… Miss Barrow?” He said, from between her thighs. His voice was as cool as ever. She blushed. What did it mean, she wondered, that she was in bed with someone she still felt odd calling by his given name? She shelved the thought firmly. “Herr Cabal?”

In answer, he pushed her thighs wider (and she liked that, she realised, liked the easy strength in it and the hint of control) and he lowered his head. She most certainly did not object. But she was not much more than amiable; her previous and, to be honest, rather limited experience was that even the men who had heard of this act generally wished to be praised like conquering heroes after two minutes of pleasant but underwhelming effort. It was a sort of ceremonial preliminary to the main event.

It was ten seconds before she realised her previous experience was not going to apply: forty seconds before she bit the inside of her cheek to stay quiet. The movements of his lips and tongue were light and delicate, almost polite. But there was a suspense to it. Those deft, light touches slowly turned to trailing fire, and she thought she might like - no, she wanted - no, she needed - no, she was well-nigh mad for an ounce of pressure, more friction. And slowly, agonizingly slowly, he gave it to her.

Her moans were helplessly, shamelessly grateful. She realised she was moving her hips against the measured, relentless path of his tongue. She had a feeling men didn't like that. Oh hell, she thought. It's Cabal. He’ll tell me if I should stop. And God, but it felt like nothing on this earth.

She was making sounds, sounds she hadn’t really planned to make or checked for ladylike qualities. A hint of stubble scraped her and she gasped. But when his fingers invaded her, too, she lost her mind entirely.

It wasn’t totally clear what happened then - but in retrospect, she was fairly sure he’d had to hold her down. She remembered one hand firm on her pelvis, keeping her in place. Her climax approached inexorably. Nothing existed but his fingers in her and his hot, stroking tongue sliding voluptuously against her slippery flesh. Slow groans rose out of her with every repetition.

She gasped out a warning. Surely he would want to enter her now. She was going to climax like a freight train no matter what he did; he could probably explain chemistry at her from across the room, and she’d come and come and thank him on her knees after. “You’d better… Oh, I’m going to…’. He didn't stop, or even falter in that deadly rhythm, tongue flicking cunningly over her, fingers pushing and spreading and…. “Oh god, you’re going to make me…. _Johannes_.” She actually tore her bedspread; the soft old fabric parted under her clutching hands. She cried out, she spasmed around his piercing, intruding, curling fingers until she feared she'd push him out. Her clit fluttered on his tongue and her inner muscles clenched like iron, again and again, and he held on to her fiercely as it took her.

After, she tried to collect her thoughts. She had a dim memory of saying his name - his given name, this time, and it might have been more than once. She might have sobbed it in a low, devout groan. _Johannes_. A sound of complete surrender. The conceited thing, she thought through the haze. He’ll love that. She didn’t really mind, even when she came around and found him radiating smugness like a phalanx of cream-stealing cats. She was in his arms, and he was waiting for his reviews.

She succumbed to a small, evil temptation. “Well, that was nice. Thank you.”

He nodded in casual agreement, picking the damp hair delicately from her forehead. “You can say it. I’m brilliant.” 

“Yes, quite,’ she said, as if she was politely praising a unpromising performance.

He focussed and became a degree less smug. “I am very good at that. I am certainly the best you have ever encountered.”

She inclined her head doubtfully, hoping he wouldn't notice the trembling of her hand on his side. “How would you know? I haven’t been sitting in a nunnery waiting for you to come back from the dead. But I admit,’ she said, patting his chest encouragingly, “you’re not bad at all.”

His eyebrows soared, and she had to hide her smile. “Not bad?’ he said. “That’s like saying Newton was a decent mathematician. That Herschel was a passable astronomer. That… that Darwin was… was….”

She let him struggle for a moment before she broke in. “Well…. ’ and as his eyebrows drew together in growing pique, she grinned. “I might need another test to make up my mind. Perhaps two tests, or more. Experimental data. A statistically significant number of results. Very important.’ She nodded seriously. “I’m available now.”

He closed his eyes and let out a short, harsh sigh of real relief. “Infuriating woman. I am a prodigy. And you need a new quilt.’

“A new quilt, he says. I need a new….” She couldn’t think of anything clever. “Central nervous system? Standard of comparison? Never mind. I'll think of something later.”

She lay curled damply in his arms for a minute while she savoured the memory of recent events and got her bearings. Where she was now was pretty nice, too: she loved the hard muscle of his shoulder, the dusting of blond hair on his body. Mm, his body. She ran her hand down his abdomen, stopping just short of his straining erection. His breath snagged, but he stayed quite still.

He cleared his throat. “It's not necessary for us to - you shouldn't feel you must reciprocate in any way.”

“What?”

“That… what we just did was… I liked it. I wouldn't feel unhappy if we stopped there.”

She was at a loss for words for a moment. “I hope you don't actively mind if I want... if I want you inside me. I wouldn't want to impose.”

Oh, he didn't mind. He couldn't hide that, not with her ear over his heart and his chest under her cheek and his beautiful hard cock twitching at the words. His hands started to play over her back. But he said, “are you sure?” He moved onto his side, looking at her face.

“Yes, I’m sure. Of course, I’m sure. If I change my mind, you will be the first to know.” She wrapped legs and arms around him and succeeded in pulling him over her. He scrambled to take his weight off her, but Leonie held him close.

“…Because, wait for a moment, if you’d rather not….”

“Johannes,’ she said, and the sound of his name between them, naked, in her bed, silenced them both for a moment. “Johannes, I accept that you’ve come back from abroad with all sorts of sexual wizardry. I will not cross-examine you about it now. But if you keep being shy, I am going to wonder if you actually want to, ah, have me. Not that anyone could complain about the programme so far. But.’ She couldn't say it to his face. She whispered it in his ear. “I like it. I want you. I want to come around you, and then I want to watch you come.”

She could feel his breath hitch again, and she thought she would never get tired of that, not if she heard it ten thousand times.

He cleared his throat. “Shy. Shy?” He wasn’t shy. He had never been particularly shy, and now, with her legs spread around him, he did not feel shy at all. “Are you ready, _Fräulein_?”

There was something in his tone. She nodded, her eyes wide. This was new, too, but it attracted her complete attention.

“Let me see.” And his fingers brushed between her legs, finding her ready, more than ready. “Yes.’ And he lingered, sliding his fingers up and down until her breath quickened again. “You must say if anything is uncomfortable.”

And she nodded obediently, lost in the sensation of his touch and the half-seriousness, half-play of his stern words.

And he pushed her knees apart and moved over her. The feel of him between her legs, warm and hard, made her cry out. He moved against her without entering her, using his body to brush every nerve ending there. She rocked her hips and her hands were restless on his back, pulling him closer. And now, at last, he was finally losing that endless sangfroid. He put a hand hard on her hip, as if he wanted to feel exactly how she was moving. He was sliding against her with more intent and less art, and his lips were soft and parted. He watched her face as if nothing else existed in the world, his breath coming ragged and fast. That expression on his face sent shivers through her that terminated at the need between her thighs, and she may have moaned and clutched his shoulder, urging him closer.

At this, he recollected himself, and stopped moving for a moment. Leonie growled - there was no other word for it - and wrapped her legs around his thighs. He shuddered as his length was pressed tight to her body, and she started to move - until he actually withdrew for a moment. “If you don’t behave, at least briefly, this is going to be over sooner than you would like. For pity’s… it has been _years_.” She recognized the grim set of his mouth from other, more life-threatening occasions, and giggled, which earned her an exasperated look.

“It’s just that the last time I remember you looking like that, we were trapped by….” And the end of the reminiscence was lost in a gasp, as he lowered his head to her breast and bit lightly. “Ooooohhh, please do that again. Please, now.” And he did, until the anecdote was lost forever. It took her almost by surprise when she felt him at her entrance again, his fingers first, dividing, opening, running wetly along the seam of her, somehow avoiding her most sensitive spot until he brushed it lightly and he was oh thank goodness, at her entrance and pushing gently - she cried out again - and sliding just inside her. He timed his caresses to his shallow strokes, but he didn’t fill her, just teased the entrance until she was moving restlessly, trying to fuck herself on him.

And he finally relented and sank inside her in a long, delicious push she felt through every inch of her body. She gasped with the feeling of him deep inside her. Oh god, she was still sensitive and blood-flushed from her orgasm, and it made him feel enormous, almost uncomfortably so. “You’ll have to be…”

“Shhh. I know.’ His voice was strained, his accent more pronounced. He kissed her cheek, he sank his face into her hair for a moment, eyes closed, and she turned her cheek to lie on his, so she felt as well as heard his whisper. “I promise, I’ll take care of you. Let me take care of you, Leonie.’ And he kissed her face gently, a little awkwardly.

She brought a hand up to cup his cheek - she didn’t know if he’d like it, but she couldn’t help it. He was being so lovely. Could he stay this way, sweet and careful and unguarded? She shushed the thought. She felt his expression change at her caress, and he turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm, and she found she was holding her breath.

He hadn’t moved inside her, just stayed there, buried in her to the root. The feeling of borderline discomfort had ebbed already. Why wouldn't he move? Why wouldn't he...? She could have tried to rock her hips against again - and in fact her instinct was to wriggle under him like a frustrated weasel - but perhaps she could do something more effective.

She clenched around him, earning a near-sob - she saw his hand fisted in the bedsheets. “Do you want to move that lovely stiff thing inside me, Johannes?’ Her voice was half purr, half deadly earnest. Now he was so still. She suspected he might not be breathing. “It feels so good, stretching me, but I want to feel you fucking me. Please?’ And she tightened around his shaft again, and he tried to sink deeper into the tightness, and they both gasped. “For God’s sake, what are you waiting for?’ And she felt the ghost of a smile on his face. ” _And if you think that constitutes pleading…_ ’

He didn’t reply with words, but he did shift and move a hand down between them, and she almost groaned in exasperation as he began to stroke her gently. It felt incredible, being spread and pinned beneath him, deliciously stretched and filled, and the slippery caress of his fingers on her and it was almost enough, if he didn’t do anything else she would come as inevitably as an arrow loosed from a bow, and yet… and yet he wasn’t moving, and she was going to hit him over the head in a minute. Smack him a few times, like a malfunctioning machine. “What are you…? What are you doing?” It seemed impossible he had waited this long, bizarre, self-flagellatory, and she was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to… 

Oh, thank god. Oh, Jesus and all the little fishes. Her nerves sang with pleasure as he fucked into her. And oh, God the friction, and the feel of him sinking in and in, and the tiny stretching feeling as he pushed deeper, never relenting on her clitoris, but timing the caresses with each delicious stroke, as if it was his cock and not his fingers hitting every nerve ending at once.

She was like a mad thing, some tiny rational part of her brain observed. Pushing up beneath him, gripping a shoulder or a bicep, urging him into her with a hand on his back, whispering filthy things in his ear. She looked up into his beautiful face, stern with distraction and lust, and the strangeness of it hit her again, and a happiness so deep her eyes welled up.

When her climax came, she held on to him like a drowning woman as she shuddered and clenched around him in spasms that made him cry out and drove him into a series of deep, deep thrusts and a final hard push that made her gasp in response as her orgasm ended. She breathed like a runner, holding him tight to her, not ready to stop, not ready to face whatever might come next.

***

Some minutes later, Cabal was lying with his head pillowed on Leonie's stomach. He looked for constellations in the age-specked ceiling paint. One of his hands toyed with the torn edge of the quilt; the other lay lax by his side. They whispered, though they were alone; as if their daylight selves couldn't hear them, Leonie thought.

“I did not beg.”

“If you say so.” That was a smile; that was definitely a smug smile.

She tugged a lock of the hair that was tickling her stomach. “I didn't even say please.”

“It was all in the intonation.' He fell silent, then mused, “I was afraid I would embarrass myself in the first three minutes. It wouldn't have been difficult.”

“But C-, but Johannes. Really. When did you... I mean, how....” Her voice faded. How did one ask a man, a solitary and fastidious man, where he had learned how to make love like _that_? One didn't. Except that one just had, and one sort of wanted to die. 

Even worse, he seemed to have understood. He lifted his head from her stomach and sat up. His face was serious. “I can tell you more about that. But I would rather not tonight: not now, unless you wish it.” The question recalled him to the practicalities. “Might you – might you become pregnant?” It was so like Cabal to use the straightforward word. She was able to inform him that it was a remote possibility; she was used to taking precautions. He nodded, filing the information.

That question answered, he lay down alongside her, stretching. Her eyes traced the movement of the flat muscles under his skin; he was, she realised, very beautiful. 

He asked, “are you tired?”

“Not so tired that I want to sleep.” She found she was smiling; she was in bed with Johannes, and it was rather lovely. He surprised her with a small but genuine smile of his own. She plucked up a bit of courage and put her arms around him, and she felt a moment of joy when he returned the embrace. He held her close as he rolled to lie down.

“Good. Very good. But I admit, I might need an interval before recommending myself to you again.” But he didn't move away or let her go.

“I’m sure I can think of some way to while away the time.” Her hands wandered down his chest. 

He lifted his head to look at what she was doing. “My god, are you woman or rabbit? Unhand me, you succubus.” But his arms were still tight around her.

“You’ll like this. Just lie still and relax.” Cabal hadn’t relaxed fully in twenty years, but he was prepared to experiment. Since Leonie had suggested it. Late into the night, his soul glowed inside him.


	12. Aubade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Thank you for your assistance.”
> 
> “Oh, I just drove the car.”
> 
> He was almost unchanged, she thought. The glossy surface was still there, the hat, the gloves, the midnight suit and bag. Did Johannes Cabal know how to stop being a necromancer?

Cabal woke, every nerve alert, hand reaching for a gun that wasn't there. He had a moment of tense disbelief. Even in Pasiná he had kept one within reach. 

The attack was not a lethal one; Leonie had turned over in her sleep and put her hand on his face. He kissed the appendage in question and returned it to her. He was in bed with Leonie, after a long night. He could see a sliver of the eastern sky, and dawn was just below the horizon, transmuting the sky to blue, to gold, to rose. He turned gently, so he wouldn't wake her. He watched her sleep, and he thought about the future.

He hoped she would consider leaving Penlow. He could not imagine himself living in this house, becoming one of the village worthies. Yet, she loved it here, didn't she? And she might, he realised, be less than enthusiastic about the hotbed of vampiric activity he had chosen for pursuing his research. 

He wasn't concerned. They would wrangle and fight, but they would find a solution; they always did. He thought back over the years that had brought them to this silence before the dawn. He allowed it all to spool through his thoughts. For once, he allowed himself the vice of nostalgia. 

When he looked at her sleeping face, there was so much emotion in his chest, there was hardly room for air. He wanted to pull her close and cherish her. But she needed her sleep, so he contented himself with counting her peaceful breaths. He guarded her slumber until he slipped back into sleep.

***

Cabal’s hair hung over his forehead, and his skin was pink in the sun that poured into the room. The sheet had slipped from his shoulders and back, and one long leg stuck out. 

The most bizarre thing, Leonie thought, was how natural it had felt, though she had been nearly terrified with excitement. As if she kissed him all the time. As if she had surprised that smile out of him before. As if fitting together like two halves of a whole was a given. But it wasn't normal at all. This was Johannes Cabal, naked and next to her, and that required some thought.

So. There was nothing, really, to stop a woman from falling into bed with an old friend. If the attraction to said friend had also displayed the cracks in her understanding with her current-until-recently companion, well, these things happened. 

The old Cabal would have gone off the deep end after such an episode. This new model was unpredictable - obviously - but she thought he might not roll around sobbing or refuse to see her again. He might even want to repeat the procedure. Which would be very nice, as far as that went.

She looked at Johannes' face. The rare times she had seen him sleep, he had lain on his back, as composed as if the undertakers were around the corner. Now, he was half on his stomach with his face smashed into a pillow. His mouth was open on one side, but his eyebrows were drawn together in a familiar expression; he always looked irritable when he slept, as if someone, somewhere, was disarranging a bookshelf. It made her want to kiss the frown line between his pale brows. And then, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes. She wanted to smooth back the spiky fringe of hair that had escaped to flop down his forehead. She wondered how his face would look if she licked him awake. She wanted to tangle herself with him and not get up for years, if ever. 

And that was the problem. She knew where those thoughts would lead, and panic rose in her belly. Over the years, Leonie had learned what to do when she started having sentimental thoughts about this man: she distracted herself. Her favourite sort of distraction had a pleasant, open face, liked dancing, and knew how to kiss. It wasn't going to be so easy after last night.

There was a deep seam of practicality in Leonie Barrow; it was one of the reasons she got on well with Cabal. She swallowed. Those thoughts, those feelings were good reasons to leave now, go downstairs, start breakfast, and start the process of putting everything back where it had been yesterday afternoon. 

***

Johannes Cabal woke up in Leonie Barrow’s bed. Or, he supposed, looking at a bedpost, Frank Barrow’s bed, though he preferred not to pursue that train of thought. It was Leonie’s now. 

Sunlight flamed in the savaged sheets, on the quilt on the floor, on the pillow somehow wedged between the bed and the night table… so that was there it had got to, he thought absently. He rose and caught his eye in her mirror. He looked…. Despite the few hours of sleep and the stubble and his hair in all directions, he looked well. There was something about the eyes. Within those four walls, it occurred to him, he was simply Leonie Barrow's lover. 

Memories of last night flooded over him. The small awkwardness he had felt stepping into this room, the softness of her hand in his, the sight of her face distorted with lust as he slowly, slowly eased into her, the tenderness of her hand on his cheek. Last night had swallowed him whole. He was totally out of his depth, even suspected it had changed him in ways he did not yet understand, and still…. And still, he was unworried. He had confidence in the unstoppable team of Barrow and Cabal. He retreated to his room for razor and bath towels. 

Clean and dressed, he moved lightly down the stairs and stopped outside the kitchen. There was Leonie, cooking. He watched her crack eggs. He didn't know why it was interesting; it just seemed wonderful. There she was, stepping into a shaft of sunlight. She wore a green patterned dress with old slippers. The slippers tugged at his… heart?

He was unaware that a smile lingered on his face as he crossed the kitchen. She turned, and he thought he would kiss her, but there was a whisk in his way. He looked at it, waiting for her to move it. She was smiling. Brightly. Not the way she had smiled last night, which he supposed he could describe as darkly. His mind took a brief detour and had to be dragged back to the present. But the whisk. 

“Good morning,” he said, and he bent to kiss her. Only to find the whisk still there. He didn’t want to be overly precious about his suit, but he was still waiting for his trunk and possibly… possibly this was intentional. That bright smile had not moved.

***

“Good morning, Cabal. Did you sleep…’ _well_? she had been about to ask. She knew how he had slept. Not terribly well. Was she blushing? Her face felt warm. She pressed on. “What do you think we should do today?” 

Oh, hell, look at him. She could think of a few things they should do together. His hair was damp and combed back, and he was freshly shaved. She wanted to test the smoothness of his cheek with her lips. She wanted to rumple him. What kind of a man puts on a black cravat for breakfast with the woman he has comprehensively gratified the night before? 

She realised she was staring at him, and the whisk was dripping on the floor. He looked confused. “Leonie…” he started and then stopped. 

But the name told her everything she needed to know. He wasn’t going to go along with _my-what-a-nice-morning_. 

She stopped pretending ignorance. She had been acting like a child. She swallowed and spoke softly. “I think we’d better leave it at that. It was nice. But don’t you agree?” Her stomach curdled. She couldn’t think of anything more revolting than the omelettes she was making. 

Cabal looked as if he had disembarked a London trolley and stepped out in Panama. “Agree?’ he said. “With what?” 

“That last night was lovely,” she swallowed, “but perhaps it shouldn’t be repeated.” 

The words fell into the kitchen like a party-sized shoggoth into a child’s paddling pool. A silence cleared around Leonie's statement.

He was white. "I see. I understand. I should leave." And the unbelievable ass actually took a step back from her, turned around, and started for the stairs. 

"No!’ she cried out. It was louder than she’d meant, but he stopped. “No. Not that either. That's what we used to do: shout ultimata and stomp off swearing we would never speak again. Sit down, eat your breakfast, and we will _talk_.’ His colour had gone from pale to high, staining his cheeks pink. His touchy pride hadn’t changed. She softened her voice. “I couldn’t forgive myself if you left here on bad terms. Please, Johannes.” She held her breath. He nodded stiffly and took a seat at the kitchen table. 

He had mostly recovered himself. His eyebrow was ironical, but his cheeks were still flushed. “Far be it from me to insist upon an, an… entanglement towards which you are not inclined, Miss Barrow.”

Leonie dropped into the chair opposite his. “Oh, god, I’ve made a hash of this. I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m sorry about last night.’ she blushed. Wonderful, now they were both red-faced and stammering. “I don’t regret it,’ she soldiered on. “It was splendid. It’s just.’ What was true but not too much truth? She picked up an empty teacup. “I think we know each other too well to be casual lovers. I don’t think that’s something I can do.” 

Cabal listened intently. His face cleared a little. Wheels were turning in his mind. He put his elbows on the table and took the teacup from her. “I agree.” 

“You do?’ She felt oddly desolate. Had she been hoping he would disagree? She jeered at herself for thinking it. All the more reason to stop this now, she reminded herself.

“I had meant to….’ Now he was playing with the teacup. “I mean, I agree. Unreservedly.” 

Leonie nodded. Her throat was tight and her stomach felt like lead. “Are you hungry? I had been planning to make omelettes.”

“No, thank you.”

“I’m not hungry either. What are your plans for today?” That meant _when are you leaving_?

“This morning I would like to think through my next steps.’ He set the teacup down. “There is an afternoon train. I will take you to lunch first?” 

Yes. Lunch. They used to do that sometimes; this was a step in the right direction. “That would be lovely. We can go to Prestwick, and I can drop you at the station after. Will I be able to write you?”

“Perhaps in London, temporarily. I will research and look for a place to settle. I will send you my direction when I have one.” But he seemed distracted. “I am going for a walk now.”

***

The arrival of Cabal’s trunk was a welcome reprieve from pretending to care about planning the survey course she taught to a shoal of undergraduates. It was a massive object. Probably full of books, weaponry, and one suit, she thought. 

She kept thinking about last night.

She heard Cabal return and go directly up to his room. They would have to leave in an hour; she should change into something smart to see him off. She was tidying her papers away when Tom knocked at the front door.

Normally he'd have tried the kitchen door, which she often left unlocked; this formality was a sign of their estrangement. In the same spirit, she showed him into the parlour. He had dressed carefully and combed his hair. He seemed more nervous than angry. 

He spoke without preamble. “Look, Kitty. I was angry about Mr. Cabal staying with you, and I was confused last night when you came and… and just left again, and I think I gave you the idea I didn’t want to see you again.’ He knit his heavy, scarred hands together. “All I need to know is that there’s nothing between you now. I don't want to push you to come to the farm, if you're sure it wouldn't make you happy, but… maybe you’d wear a ring, if I gave you one?”

Oh, hell. Nothing about this day was going to be easy, was it? She shook her head. “I don’t know, Tom. I can't talk about it right now. I'm driving Cabal to the station soon, and then I’ll come over, and we’ll talk.” And I will tell you I can’t see you any more, Leonie thought. But she had to get Cabal out of the house so she could think clearly. 

“Will we still go to the dance tomorrow, do you think?”

“Yes. Fine. Let's,” she said and smiled, trying to take the edge off her ambivalence. They could reconsider that later.

She escorted Tom to the front door. He turned, and they hesitated at the point of a habitual farewell kiss.

She heard footsteps on the stairs behind her. It was Cabal, clad in a loosely tied dressing gown, the collar of his shirt hanging open at the neck. He was wearing trousers under the robe, but he may as well have tangoed down the stairs naked with a rose in his teeth, for the impression it gave stolid old Tom. While it was perfectly all right to go about the fields half-stripped on a fine day, a man didn't dress like that around a woman unless he was sick, old, or carrying on with her. Or had he seen something in her face, or in Cabal’s?

Cabal gave him a curt nod. “Soanes.” 

Tom turned from Cabal to her with a convulsive twist of his neck. He said nothing, but he gave Leonie one scathing glance, turned, and left. 

She was too dismayed to react before the door banged shut. She reached out a hand to open it and follow him, but Mr. Willoughby was tending his roses across the way and Mary Smith played with her twin boys on her front step next door. She hesitated. She would not put on a melodrama for the entire neighbourhood. “A Woman Scorned,” maybe. Or “When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly.” What would she say, even if he would listen? She wouldn't lie.

Thwarted, she turned a furious gaze on Cabal. She normally didn’t swear in the house; she still felt like dad could hear. “You bastard.” 

“What?” But there was a little consciousness in his air. 

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what you just did. You’re not that oblivious, not now.’ She was torn between shame and anger. “Oh, god, now Tom thinks… now Tom knows…. What is this, some kind of claim you’re staking? You think that because we slept together, you have a right to interfere in my life?”

Cabal stood on the bottom step as if he was unwilling to trust the floor near Leonie. “I didn't…”. Hadn't he, though? 

“Well, let me tell you something. Tom helped me. While you were spending six years licking your wounds and probably screwing half of Poloruss.” Tears were prickling in her eyes.

“You are being obscene,’ he snapped. “By contrast, you have buried yourself here, creating the dullest, narrowest life you could imagine. Mr. Soanes is the capstone of that effort; I congratulate you. But I can hardly be held responsible if he chooses to overreact based on something so trivial….”

“But he’s not really overreacting, is he? Everything he’s imagining right now is correct. He was right about you, and he was right about me.”

“Right about what?”

But she didn't answer. “I can’t believe I ran from his bed to - to you. Who else was there while dad was dying? You were nowhere, Cabal. Nowhere.” Her voice cracked, and it stung him like a lash. “I was working during the day and nursing dad every other hour. Tom came around every evening and sat with dad, or helped in the garden, or took me out for a walk. He saved me that year. And you show up because, because it’s suddenly _convenient_ for you, and I just…. I can't believe myself. Tom is a good man, and a kind man, and he loves me, so you shut your damned mouth about him.”

Cabal flinched minutely at each descriptor.

She was dangerously close to crying. She gathered her dignity. “And you are here today and gone tomorrow. No, actually, you're gone now. Pack. You’ve got what you came for.”

Cabal was pale again, and his back was so straight you could have wallpapered it. “Yes.” 

“Then go. And your trunk is here. Dress yourself, for god’s sake.”

She left him still on the stairs. She went to the kitchen, closed the door behind herself, and pulled a clean tea towel from the drawer. She sat down at the table, buried her face in the cloth, and sobbed like her heart was breaking. Hot tears leaked from her eyes and her mouth went dry from her openmouthed sobs. Why had she said those awful things to Cabal? She didn't even believe all of them, not really. Why had she said that about… she groaned. About half of Poloruss? That was none of her business. And then throwing it in his face about dad, as if Cabal would have, could have helped her the way Tom had. She was silly for drawing a comparison between them.

He had earned a swat on the nose, but something else had spilled out: jealousy and resentment and childish pain. _You left. Where did you go? Why didn't you come back?_ The tears, which had slowed, redoubled, and the sobs convulsed her body. If his answer was anything she wanted to hear, he would have told her by now. 

***

Cabal returned upstairs. His anger had faded with the careful click of the kitchen door. He did have what he had come for. 

She had implicitly compared him to Soanes on three counts. A good man? If pressed, he would say that the category was vague, meaningless. Would Leonie say he was good? He almost laughed.

A kind man? No. 

A man who loved Leonie Barrow? Yes. Fine, yes. But that wasn’t sufficient. He had been a fool last night, this morning, thinking that all the obstacles had melted away, that _amor_ had suddenly _vincit_ ’ed _omnia_. It didn't. He knew that. Virgil, he ruminated, could get stuffed.

She had taken him to her bed, but it had been lust and friendship, a sort of kindness. Only his need had made it into more. He gathered every shred of love and decency he had, and pushed a thought through his brain. If Soanes was what she wanted, she should have him. Mightn't he find some peace if he knew she was happy? 

And if their friendship could be recovered, could he be satisfied with the old round of chess, minor injury, and bickering? Poorly expressed affection and sexual sublimation? He missed it keenly, but he suspected it was gone. He couldn't pretend to be indifferent now. It had been bad enough before, when he had barely known what he wanted. 

He checked the hour. There was a train soon, and he could be ready. The engraving caught his eye: the dancing couple and _tempus fugit_. The irretrievable moment had escaped him, hadn't it, while he was drinking or studying or hiding in that boring little coffin of a flat. It had passed silently, as life deserts the body. Or, no: there had never been a time for him. Dry bones.

***

Leonie's sobs gave out before she was ready. She wanted to cry the pain out, but it sat in her stomach like an indigestible dinner; the tears couldn't be coaxed to start again, and the pain wouldn't sharpen to the point of sobs. Her mind started to fret over the week ahead. Tom furious - and Cabal gone. She hardly thought he'd visit again. There couldn't be many professional opportunities for Cabal near Penlow, and the social side of this visit could not be called a success. She had a thought; she couldn't bear never seeing him again.

Of course she could. Don't be melodramatic, Barrow. One man, one friend: was she so fragile she couldn't do without him? And it was all very well to weep and rage and miss him, but she was going to wake up tomorrow and put the tea on anyway, wasn't she? It was an awful thought.

***

He packed his belongings. Last, he weighed the book in his hands. There wasn't really time to examine it now, but he reached for the paper-knife at the little writing desk.

The book was bound in leather over some kind of padding. It felt pleasingly cushioned, and there would be room for several documents in there. He slid the knife under the end paper which covered its inside edges and unfolded the leather, searching in the layer of felt padding. He did the same for the other cover. He removed both end papers entirely, tore back the paper covering the stitching. He held the boards up to his eyes, but they were untampered with. There was nothing. 

This was awkward.

***

She heard his step in the hall. He meant to catch the early train, probably. Cabal was an expert at quick, smooth departures.

They eyed each other in the hallway. He had his glasses on already, protection against the brightness of the day. He was dressed for travel, every detail in place. It made her fingers itch to muss him up, as it always had - and now she knew why. But that wasn't going to happen again. 

“Thank you for your assistance.”

“Oh, I just drove the car.”

He was almost unchanged, she thought. The glossy surface was still there, the hat, the gloves, the midnight suit and bag. Did Johannes Cabal know how to stop being a necromancer? 

“Tell me honestly, Cabal, did you mean to do that? This morning, with Tom?”

He hadn't been prepared for the question. He removed his glasses and turned them over in his hand. “I didn't. I did mean to make Soanes uncomfortable. But I did not mean to shame you.”

She believed him.

“The specific connotations of a housecoat - during the day - in your house - had not occurred to me. Horst receives friends dressed similarly, but there was no woman there.”

“And Penlow isn't Pasiná. Yes. I was too hard on you. I don't really believe you’d be that petty.”

“No.” He hurried on, as if he was embarrassed. “We did not take the right book. I will be returning tonight. In the meantime I will not impose upon you.”

“What? Not the right book? But I showed it to you.” 

“We missed a detail.” He held a swatch of leather out. Beneath the book’s title, there was a tiny ‘I.’

“There's a second volume?”

“It was dark. We were hurrying. And the description did not say it was in two volumes.” And they stood in silence until Leonie spoke. 

“Where will you go? Until nightfall?”

“I hadn't decided. You do not need to be concerned.”

“Oh, no, I was just wondering where I could direct the angry mob.’ Leonie sighed. “Cabal, today has been an unholy mess, but I'm not going to throw you out into the street. Tom got on your nerves somehow, and I just got caught in between.’ Cabal’s mien was uncertain; he opened his mouth to interrupt, but Leonie stopped him with a raised hand. “I will help you get the book, for Horst, but,’ she lifted her eyes to his and spoke quietly, “you are not putting another hand on me, and you are staying the hell out of my relationship with Tom, whatever's left of it. Is that clear?” 

“Completely.” 

Good, she told herself. Everything back to normal.


	13. Miss Leonie Barrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re doing that _on purpose_ ,’ Cabal breathed, barely able to credit her depravity. And with a smile like a closing trap, she leaned in close and whispered in his ear.

Herr Cabal;

Fine, don’t answer my letters, see if I care. You’re probably wedged into some little library in Bolivia, coping the Necronomicon by hand. It will all end in tears, see if it doesn’t.  
I am only writing you because I can’t sleep. I don’t know how you bear it, being up in the middle of the night all the time. It feels like I've been deserted by the human race. But _you_ might still be around.  
Oh, all right, fine. King’s rook right up the middle to your knight, and don’t pretend you don’t know which one.

Miss Barrow  
_I’m only Leonie to my friends._

***

Dear Cabal;

Oh, god, what a day. I’m sitting these examinations - I don’t know why any of this is supposed to be relevant to criminology. Sometimes I think they choose the literature review requirements with a dartboard. I studied all night, and then I fell asleep when I came home. Dad found me snoring on the couch at seven in the evening.  
Now, of course, I’m up at three. I’m lonely, and you’re the only one I can write, because you’re probably awake, wherever you are. What are you doing with yourself? If you were going to be away for months, you should have forwarded your mail. Unless you did. Send me your chess move, you craven dog.

L.B.

 

***

Dear Cabal;  
Dad’s not well. He’s claiming it’s a ‘summer chill’, but now it’s an autumn chill, and he’s bloody well going to see a doctor. I can hear him waking up every half hour. It’s probably nothing, but I’m scared it’s serious.  
You know, for a long time, I thought my mother might come back some day. I didn’t really believe it - I was a matter-of-fact little clod even then - but I still _thought_ she might. It was easier to imagine she’d run away, even though it hurt. Children think the strangest things.  
~~Does it ever seem to you that one can’t hold on to anything or anyone~~  
God, where are you? Write back, stop me from pelting you with this drivel.  
Leonie

 

***

You infuriating man;  
Where the red hell are you? I mean here I am, sitting up through all the black hours alone, and you 

 

***

Dear Cabal;  
Dad’s not well at all. I wish you were around to insult the doctors and offer weird and unclean cures. Dad wouldn’t have any of it, but I’d enjoy watching you try.  
I’m so tired of being

 

***

Dear Johannes;  
I thought this was helping, but it’s not healthy. You still seem realer than the people around me, and I’ve known you were gone since before exams. I visited your house. Damn you for dying. I hope it hurt. 

Oh, god, no I don’t, not for a moment, please don’t believe that. I would never wish that. 

I hope it was quick. I hope you went with a sneer, thinking you’d won again. But sometimes I think you bled out slowly. ~~I would have given anything to have been able to~~ I wish you hadn’t been alone. I wish I knew whose fault this was. It would be a relief to have someone to shoot. ~~Was it cold, did you despair,~~  
I’m going to stop. I’m going to burn this. 

 

***

_Years earlier_

Frank Barrow woke to the smell of coffee. 

For a hazy moment, all was well with the world. His wife was downstairs making breakfast, and he should get up and knock on Lee’s door to wake her up for school. But something seemed odd about that. She had been home from school this week, hadn't she? Then he groaned aloud, remembering. Lee hadn't gone to school this week because her mother was dead. 

Why could he smell coffee?

He went downstairs to find his daughter in the kitchen. Coffee was brewing, and she was toasting bread and coddling eggs. Her hair was up in a tail, high behind her head, and her mother’s apron hung past her knees.

“Heavens, what's all this?” She’d helped in the kitchen, but she'd never made a meal unsupervised. He'd planned to start oatmeal and then wake her, but here she was. “Don't burn yourself,” he cautioned, as she opened the oven. She'd already heated slices of ham, which she slid into the plates, followed by the eggs.

“I'm fine, dad. And you need a good meal in the morning.” 

She was so brisk, going from counter to stove to icebox. She poured him a cup of coffee. Totally preempted, he took his seat and let her wait on him. “Sweetheart. This is grand. But you need your sleep, for school. I'll get breakfast, and you can help with dinner.”

“I'll do both, dad. It won't hurt me to be up half an hour earlier. And you have enough to be getting on with.” 

“That's my job,’ he said gently. “I'm your dad. I'll be fine; just you take care of yourself and think about school.’ He saw something. “Is that a burn? Get that under water right now!”

“I did, dad. It’s all right, it really is. Where are you going?” 

“I’m getting you a bandage. That’s blistering, and it’ll be raw if you don’t take care of it.”

“But breakfast will get cold! Sit back down!” Her voice had gone high and uneven. He had to take control of the situation.

“You watch your tone, young lady. That’s an injury there, right? And what do we do in the police?” He softened his voice from stern to instructive.

“First aid.” She said it grudgingly.

“That’s right. Now you’re not going to let me miss a chance to use my training, are you?”

“No, dad.”

“That’s right. And if breakfast gets cold, then it gets cold.” 

He bandaged the streak of red blister on her wrist. She must have dragged a pot against it, probably when she was making the coffee. She could have cried and woken him, but she'd just kept on going. That was his little girl: headstrong, and tough as a hill farmer. He was like that. Her mother had been better at talking to her.

Leonie watched him tie off the bandage, but when she spoke, it was about something quite different. “Dad, I think I'm too old to be called Lee. If you don't mind much.”

“When you were tiny, you couldn't say ‘Leonie.’ ‘Lee’ was as much as you could manage.” He smiled a little.

“I know. But I'm ten now.”

“Yes, you are. Well, Leonie it is.” She had to grow up, he thought. But did she have to grow up so hard, and so soon? “Will you join me for breakfast, Miss Leonie Barrow?”

“Oh, dad, you're being silly.”

He wished she had cried more. That was a funny thing to wish, wasn't it?

 

***  
***  
_Present Day_

Leonie drove with care, maintaining a sensible speed and paying attention to the road ahead. There was something appealing about getting into a minor car crash instead of facing Tom. Technically… _technically, _she hadn’t done anything wrong. But it had a very bad look. And it wasn’t ladylike behaviour.__

__He hadn’t seemed surprised to see her. He didn’t pretend to be happy, either; he was grim and quiet. She’d never seen him angry. But then, had he ever seen her angry? Had they ever fought?_ _

__They sat in the glare of the kitchen light, at the oilcloth-covered table. They each held a mug of tea. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t straightforward with you this morning. Something did happen between Cabal and me last night.”_ _

__Tom grimaced, eased a sore muscle in his shoulder. “I'd almost convinced myself I was imagining things. Maybe I wish you’d let me think that.”_ _

__Leonie was taken aback. “You can’t wish I’d lie?”_ _

__“Oh can’t I.” He took a sip of his tea._ _

__“Well. I’m sorry to cause you more pain. And I’m sorry you found out the way you did. I should have said no to you when you came. I should have said it was over. I was going to tell you this afternoon, once Cabal was gone.”_ _

__“And is he gone?”_ _

__“No, he’s still there.”_ _

__“I’m not surprised, now that his welcome has warmed up.”_ _

__She bit back a sharp retort. “Is there anything you want to know?”_ _

__“I’m not sure I want to know anything at all. Just one question, then. Did you know this was going to happen?”_ _

__“No. I swear I didn’t.’ Tom didn't say anything back. He was giving her, she thought, plenty of room to incriminate herself. “Cabal and I are old friends. And we were never any more than that. But I’m… I’m a bit stuck on him, to be honest.’ The schoolyard phrase helped her say it. “And I don’t think it was more than an experiment for him. No more than I expected, I suppose.”_ _

__“You think he doesn't have feelings for you?”_ _

__Leonie smiled faintly. “Cabal has lots of feelings, but I don't think they're very romantic.”_ _

__“Are you sure that’s the problem, Kit?”_ _

__“What do you mean?” He shook his head. He was done. She left._ _

__***_ _

__Leonie and Cabal drove along dark roads. He had been taciturn all evening, so his question was doubly unexpected. “Will you be seeing Tom again?”_ _

__She considered telling him to sod off, but she was tired of their silence. “No.”_ _

__“I’m sorry.”_ _

__She shifted gears moodily. “Don't lie.”_ _

__“Fine. He’s a clod.”_ _

__“You weren't the one seeing him.” Her four-year relationship hadn't survived three days of Cabal, but she didn't expect him to be contrite._ _

__They pulled into the same spot beyond the house’s front drive and slipped along the edge of the trees without a light. The facade of the house hulked dark against the stars. The evening had turned warm again. Branches swayed and muttered as the leaves caught the night breeze. The house was a small dark shape at the end of the drive._ _

__“Perhaps,’ he said, “next time you should choose someone whose loss you couldn't forget within an evening.”_ _

__His words hit a nerve. She already felt badly about that. “Now wait a moment, as I recall, you were also-”_ _

__“I don't mean that as an insult. Forget Tom Soanes.” He was standing close. The moon lit his face almost as clearly as daylight, but his hat shadowed his eyes. Hell, but he was handsome in moonlight._ _

__“I should forget him? The way you forgot me?” She turned toward him._ _

__A quick, irritated shake of his head. “I never forgot you. Not for one day.”_ _

__She didn't know what to say, so she took refuge in teasing him. “But for the occasional hour?”_ _

__“Well, yes. There was work.”_ _

__“Right. Poor you: stranded in Poloruss, a million miles from paper or a pen or His Majesty's mails, or a telegraph office.”_ _

__“It wasn't so simple.”_ _

__“Then explain! I don't have anywhere to be.” The seconds beat between them like a heart. He stood silent and irresolute. “Then we are back where we started. Shall we continue with our entertainment?”_ _

__They had a surprise when they circled to the back of the house and found the lawn lit up by lamplight streaming from downstairs windows. Cabal stopped and cursed. He started when he felt Leonie close behind his shoulder. She leaned towards his ear to murmur a few words: “let’s get close. Maybe we can still get in.” She moved away, and he breathed again._ _

__They emerged from the newly planted topiary. Cabal stepped onto the terrace, and Leonie followed him carefully, staying to the shadows. The room was inhabited. A young couple sat together on a sofa. The woman lifted a glass of wine, and she and the man both read magazines; it seemed the new neighbours had arrived. Leonie tried to see the shelf. She thought she might see a book in the same dull blue as the one they had stolen. “Is that it, there?”_ _

__The couple faced away from them. Unless a servant came in, it would be safe to approach the glass. To anyone inside the library, the windows would be black mirrors reflecting the room. If they allowed their faces to be caught by the light, however, they could be seen. Leonie was glad she'd covered her hair with a dark kerchief._ _

__Leonie wondered, did the servants have to stay awake? She couldn’t imagine enjoying her magazine and glass of wine if she knew she was keeping other people awake, bored and tired. And the servants would still have to get up early, wouldn't they? She’d have to ask Hildy._ _

__Cabal peered through the window, but he wasn’t satisfied with the results. He walked to a garden table, a little away from the windows. Reflected light still illuminated his face. He removed his jacket, and she had a flash of memory from last night: pulling it off his shoulders clumsily, while they kissed._ _

__He brought out a pack of cards. They weren’t playing cards or tarot cards but something she hadn’t seen before. He fanned them out on a garden table._ _

__“Where did you find those?”_ _

__“They were in my trunk. They aren’t meant for this, but I can improvise.”_ _

__He'd removed his gloves as well as his jacket, and she watched his bare hands manipulate the cards. His lips moved silently. He was silhouetted against the dim light, and suddenly she wanted to push the divination tools to the side and take their place under him. She wanted to pluck his hat off and kiss him. She wanted to pull him between her thighs. How many times had she sneaked looks at him while he was working, over the years? He'd never noticed. He wasn't noticing open staring, so she could have indulged herself all along._ _

__She felt alive out here, in the night with Cabal. For a minute, it didn't even matter that he was leaving, or that the memory of last night made her feel longing and panic in equal intensity. The wind blew in the treetops, and she had a literal partner in crime, and he made her heart beat in her throat and her mouth go dry. Why not? Really, why not? If it was a mistake, they’d made it once already._ _

__“Miss Barrow?’ Fine, she thought, closing her mouth. Maybe she’d allowed herself to be a bit obvious._ _

__She cleared her throat. “What are you doing?”_ _

“I am interpreting the data. As I said, these aren’t actually for divination, and… and.’ The rest of that thought turned to dried leaves and blew away. Leonie had interposed herself between him and the table, facing him. That wasn’t a large area. She was very close. He wished he could see her face, but she was between him and the light from the house. He put his hands in his pockets, not because he had any hope of looking casual, but to keep himself from touching her. And he was hard again, _Herrgott nochmal_ …. 

__He hadn’t stepped back. It would take one step forward to press her against the table. But she had been very clear; he was not to touch her again._ _

__He found it humiliating, how his body simply volunteered every time he was within three feet of her. Like an overeager undergraduate, desperate to impress the professor. _Pick me_ , his cock pleaded. How many men were infatuated with Leonie Barrow? How many others straightened their hair when they saw her coming, or adjusted their garments uncomfortably when she leaned too close? How many had dreamed about her appearing in their beds? _ _

__Then, she ran her nails down the front of his trousers. He did not fall over, or press himself into her hand like an importunate animal, but it was a near thing. He did let his eyelids fall - they hadn’t actually got permission first - and he gasped while he wavered on his feet. She caressed back up the length of him and he would not moan, he would look at least marginally collected, and… he should probably open his eyes. And hold his head up._ _

__“When you said… not to put a hand on you ever again. Do you still…” He hoped she could finish that sentence on her own, because he didn’t think he could manage it._ _

__She had a little smile on her face that deepened as an idea occurred. “That holds. Hands off. Lean against the table.”_ _

__“What?” And he shut his mouth. He sounded incredulous. He sounded desperate._ _

__“You’re going to need to.”_ _

__And she touched him. She kissed his cheek with a deliberation that was somehow unseemly. She traced his lower lip with her fingertip. She smoothed his waistcoat over his abdomen and tried the spot over his nipple with her nails. He tried not to react by movement or expression, just watched her warily, but his breathing betrayed him. “Is this… is this the time or place?” She didn’t answer. There were crickets in the garden._ _

__Finally, when he was gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles, she kissed him on the lips. He kissed her back with heat and with an edge of irritation that was so utterly him that she almost laughed through the lust. She unbuttoned two buttons of her blouse, enough to show hints of her breasts._ _

“You’re doing that _on purpose_ ,’ Cabal breathed, barely able to credit her depravity. And with a smile like a closing trap, she leaned in close and whispered in his ear. 

__“Did it excite you, Johannes, when you licked me until I came?’ Her warm breath brushed him. “I don’t think I’ve ever had an orgasm like that in my life. Did you like the sounds I made? Did you like the way I spoke your name? Did you like feeling me come on your fingers and lips?” She moved back to see his face. His eyes were wide and a little crazed. His breath came in little gasps. His mouth was open. He nodded and swallowed. Yes, he had liked those things. He had no words._ _

__“Tell me what you want,’ she breathed in his ear. “Ask for it.’ He froze. His mind had reengaged in that instant, she could feel it. When she moved away a few inches, she saw his eyes wary on her face. She shook her head slowly. “It’s not a trap. Just ask, and I’ll do whatever you want. I’d do anything.” Her voice was low with lust. He took half a breath, began to speak, stopped himself. The look in his eyes was agonised. He hadn’t been shy in her bed, not at all. So what was it?_ _

But - ah. This was about him. Her pleasure, he could perhaps approach as a project, a problem, an experiment. His, though…. To even admit it existed made him flustered. That’s why he froze when she asked him for directions. Oh, lord, how she would love wearing that down. What would he say? _Show me your breasts, tie me to the bed, lick my neck, bite me, kiss me, ride me, Leonie_. What else might he want? She thought he might have desires in there that would upend her world. She leaned back to his ear. “Would you like to have my mouth?” 

__He swallowed. “Yes.”_ _

__“Say it.”_ _

“I want….” The pause betrayed him. He finished the sentence, pronouncing each word precisely. “I want you to take me in your mouth.” His eyes dropped to her lips. He was blushing. He heaved a short breath. “Oh, _Gott_ , your mouth, Leonie.” And that was all, but the agonised honesty in the words! She felt a blush warm her cheeks, too. How much time had Cabal spent thinking about her mouth? 

__She leaned in again, slowly, and her mouth was warm and wet on his throat. He groaned, he actually groaned from that touch. And then she reached for his trouser buttons._ _

__***_ _

__It wasn’t - it truly wasn’t - that no-one had ever done this to him before before. They had. Several times. He had found it, frankly, a little embarrassing before the inevitable physical responses had taken over. He had attributed the popularity of the act to _machismo_ and the sort of unquestioned consensus that made people pay to attend sporting events or the opera. _ _

__But this was Leonie. This was her. She was parting his legs and running her nails over his balls, with those hands he had pretended not to watch, and he had never done this with someone wearing a sweater set before, and he couldn't sort out if that had anything to do with how he was feeling. He was so aroused that he had almost forgotten they could be interrupted at any moment by an insomniac servant with a rusted firearm, or discovered by a keen-eyed housemaid in the library. He wondered if the exterior of the house had been fitted with electric lights that might suddenly turn the dark terrace into a sporting arena, and display her kneeling at his feet, him half-sitting on a cast iron table, hands grasping at the scrollwork of the edge, head falling back as he surrendered._ _

She brought her lips to him, just brushing the tip of his cock. She moved her mouth smoothly from side to side, just playing, just touching. And he started thinking about it. About her lips encircling him, the heat of her mouth so close to him. She ran a finger down the underside of his cock, and he bit back a sound. That was surprise, he told himself, not sensation. And now he was feeling very, very surprised at the sharp caress of her nails, and he had expected that of some _mittleeuropean_ erotomane, but from Leonie? His skin felt hot and tight. She teased him with her lips, flirting little kisses, daring laps of her tongue, a slow, rhythmic caress on the underside of him. 

__And then, finally, as if she had denied herself as long as she could, she slowly, luxuriously, moved wet lips over his skin, sucking him into her mouth like it was a hot summer’s day and he was the best ice cream she’d ever had. He did forget about Mr. Pendrith: or rather, he stopped caring. He had one crystal-clear half-hysterical thought that Mr. Pendrith was welcome to sit down and paint a watercolour of the scene if Leonie Barrow would just move her lips over him more than that one solitary inch._ _

__What an inch it was. She held him in her mouth and brushed her tongue over his tip. She made lush sweeps with her lips. There was the merest intentional hint of her teeth, and he hadn't known that could be erotic, but oh it was. She made little pulsing movements against him with her lips, and he shuddered again. She tightened her lips so his movement didn't push him farther into her mouth, and he gasped at the sudden constriction. Was the sweater set a factor? There must be a way to construct clinical trials. What if she was wearing something else instead? What if she wasn’t wearing anything at all?_ _

__And oh, how could this be a tease, how could the act itself be a tease? The pulsing motion became stronger, and she bared more of his skin. Her fingers probed between his thighs, and he made a keening kind of moan he cut off as soon as he could unlock his vocal cords. And she smiled around his cock, the witch, and chuckled in her throat._ _

__Like a reward, she started to take more of him, slowly, one wet fraction of an inch at a time. He dared to look down to where she knelt, her mouth rudely distended around, sliding slickly over, greedily taking…. He shut his eyes again, because he was starting to wonder if it might be a solecism to climax rapidly under these conditions. He couldn’t recall the subject arising before._ _

__And then, in one slow push that felt like every endorphin in his body was involved, she took him inside as far as she could, and slid her circling hand all the way to the base of him. The result was one uninterrupted sweep of pleasure that solidly convinced his nerve endings that he had won the reproductive championships, and all the blood in his body tried to flood into his cock. She could feel that, couldn't she? She must be able to feel every twitch and shudder, every change of blood flow and hardness. So she could feel the hectic temperature of his skin, feel how hard he was, straining, feel the tension in his abdomen as he fought the urge to push into her mouth._ _

__Cabal had a well-founded theory about the level of ongoing interaction God had with his (presumable) creation: very little. God was an absentee landlord. Cabal also had an excellent understanding of evolution and its processes: it was a matter of random mutation flinging a very great many variations against a wall and seeing which ones, if any, stuck. No intention or planning was behind any of it. It was, therefore, impossible that his cock had been designed by a beneficent deity to be sucked by Leonie Barrow. He knew that. But the experiential data was compelling._ _

__And it just went on, until he could feel sweat on his neck cooling in the night wind, and his mouth was dry from helpless gasps. Finally, he had to say something. “Harder,’ he begged. “Tighter.” He had no shame left. She took instruction eagerly, and in seconds he was taken out of himself, absent, just a hot-faced bundle of nerves seething with pleasure and need in an ever-tightening cycle. He had a hand by her head now, not touching or moving or guiding, god no, just feeling how she moved, feeling how her lips left his cock with every stroke, letting him penetrate her afresh with every movement._ _

And then he was in her mouth as far as she would allow, and moving in short, desperate little jerks. Her lips tightened and her fingers dug into his buttocks and she stroked under his testicles, and he was helpless before the terrible wave of pleasure and _LeonieLeonieLeonie_ …. 

__He came to his senses in fits and starts. He unclenched his teeth. He found he was bent halfway over her, his hand hard on her shoulder, fingers digging into her flesh. He took it away. He was still in her mouth. She didn’t move away, even after his shudders slowed; she kept up a slow, lascivious motion, her gentle lips and tongue emptying him dry, and he could have sobbed from the pleasure and the warmth of it._ _

She released him, dabbed at her mouth with a dainty wrist, and glanced up. He had a faint memory of… He must have been thrusting into her mouth, he realised with a flush of shame. Rutting into it like some sort of beast. But she didn’t look put off. She looked smug, swaggering, aroused. Like she had just alit from the sky, wind-tossed and pink. What if she liked it? What if she had wanted him to put a guiding hand lightly on the curve of her jaw, on the back of her neck, and… oh, god. _Oh_. The shudders wouldn’t stop. What else might she like that he hadn’t even considered? 

__It made him wonder what he could do to her in bed, with the benefit of last night’s experience. He knew things about her now, know what made her gasp and clutch at his back with sharp little fingernail points. What made her slickly wet, what made her stretch under him and make a low humming sound that pulled a wire from the pit of his stomach to his cock. God. He wanted her again refractory period be damned._ _

__She climbed up his body, betraying a touch of stiffness in the knees. His arms came up around her automatically, gathering her tight against him as he leaned back on the table. Her grin made him collect himself a little: straighten, close his mouth, swallow. He drew a breath and exhaled judiciously, nodding. “Not bad.”_ _

__“Not…” the dismay on her face turned to outrage - to dawning understanding. She poked him in the waistcoat severely. “That’s like saying Johannes Cabal is only a fair necromancer.”_ _

__Leonie was so wet she thought it might run down her thighs. Her head was still spinning. He’d been so abandoned at the end: silent, but his face, oh his face, his breathing, the hand clenched bruise-hard on her shoulder, the helpless rocking of his beautiful hips… she wanted to devour him whole, as long as he would beg nicely. She’d never felt so much like Zarenyia. She was delirious with him, drunk. She tried to control the goofy smile, but she couldn’t. Until he ended it for her._ _

“Like saying he _was_ only a fair necromancer,’ he corrected. “And he wasn’t; he failed.” And the shadow of bitterness in his voice chilled her. She straightened, moving away from his embrace. He suddenly noticed his disarranged state and set matters to rights with his anatomy and clothing. 

_You knew he was still in love with her. He’s always been in love with her._ It would take more than her death to change that. This had been a mistake. She didn’t want to get all silly over Cabal. She was sensible about such things; she never got weepy or needy with men. _Because the one she really wanted was already taken?_ Shut up, she cried at herself, shut up. Leonie cleared her throat and put her chin up and her shoulders back. She gathered herself. She would be airy. “Well. That was fun.” 

__Cabal’s silence was heavy. “Fun.” The syllable sounded uncouth and alien on his lips._ _

__“Yes… I thought it was fun. Didn’t you?”_ _

__He swept up the cards. “If you have any more plans for light entertainment, do not include me.” The coldness of his voice hurt her. She bit down on an angry rejoinder. He reassumed his gloves. “Before you interrupted, the cards showed the object is on the north wall, close to the west end.”_ _

__“Do you want to stay and wait for them to go to bed?” The man and woman still sat on the sofa. Her head had fallen on his shoulder, but he still read and sipped. Leonie looked away._ _

__“No.”  
__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @missbarrow, over on Tumblr, for her excellent thoughts on the Lee-and-Frank flashback. 
> 
> I seem to have acquired not one, but two Tumblr blogs over the last couple of weeks: [CynaraM](https://cynaram.tumblr.com), where I complain about writing, put up outtakes, and generally maunder on about fan fiction and Johannes Cabal, and [Arachne in Angora](https://arachneinangora.tumblr.com) where I am doing a little light Zarenyia roleplaying.


	14. The skull beneath the skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wanted to know. But what else would she have to learn? She felt he was slipping away from her, and she did not know how or why. “Johannes, old friend?’ It was a question. It was an admission, a claim. “I think you need to tell me what’s on your mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Yeah, I didn't know it was going to be this quick, either.

Webster was much possessed by death  
     And saw the skull beneath the skin;  
     And breastless creatures under ground  
     Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

     Daffodil bulbs instead of balls  
     Stared from the sockets of the eyes!  
     He knew that thought clings round dead limbs  
     Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

     Donne, I suppose, was such another  
     Who found no substitute for sense;  
     To seize and clutch and penetrate,  
     Expert beyond experience,

     He knew the anguish of the marrow  
     The ague of the skeleton;  
     No contact possible to flesh  
     Allayed the fever of the bone.

T. S. Eliot, _Whispers of immortality_

 

It was his fourth day since Horst had dragged him out of bed, and he walked through an alley in Pasiná alone. Horst had, unwisely, decided he was ready to be shown about town. 

The cafe table was crowded with Horst’s friends. The conversation echoed around him unheard. His brother gave him a look as he poured himself another glass. He excused himself, as if to visit the facilities, but instead he left the cafe, wandered the streets. He dully expected Horst to find him any minute, so he didn’t pay attention to his route. 

It frightened him, how gratefully he sank under the anaesthetic of alcohol and inertia. Is this what he was, without his work? The initial burst of fear had got him out of bed, but it was wearing off. He was hollow and exhausted. He should find a project, a line of inquiry. A year ago, the world had seemed full of avenues of research he didn’t have the time to pursue. Now nothing sparked his interest. Drudgery. Dross and make-believe. 

Days and nights had passed while he lay in bed, light and darkness passing behind the blind. In his mind he rehearsed the days leading up to the disastrous resurrection attempt. He tried to feel the certainty he’d had then. Had it been real? Had he been sure? He thought he had been certain. Could his assumptions have been so disastrously wrong? Or if the theory had been as flawless as he'd thought, had he done something wrong in the resurrection itself? Had he mispronounced a syllable, prepared an impure reagent, made the tiniest error in his preparation of her body? He had not thought so at the time. It had been so close. Her eyelids had trembled, she had taken a breath. She had released it. He had spoken her name, in greeting and in terror, and she had not breathed again.

He was caught in it again, as he walked around the city for hours: it was the black hours now, and the streets were narrow and poor. He was sober; he didn’t like it. Finally, he found an open tavern.

There were more women than was usual in such places, all in thin clothing. His sober suit and hat made him conspicuous. One brash young woman took the glass out of his hand and tried to pull him to his feet and towards the dance floor. The artificial flower tucked in her curls clashed with her blue eyes under the gaslights. 

“Not looking for a dance, sweetheart?” She lowered her mouth to his ear. “How about a little fun,” and she rolled her hips and put a hand high on his thigh. 

It made several things click for Cabal, intellectually and otherwise. He realised that the menu here was not limited to beverages. And he found, to his combined horror and relief, that at least one biological system was not ready to crawl into a grave. It wasn't his favourite system: not even his favourite autonomic nervous response, he reflected. He felt loathing at the base reaction that tensed his stomach and started an ache in his groin. But he loathed himself, so it was even odds, and it was such a relief to want anything at all. The hot edge of lust sliced through the haze that had wrapped him for months. He grasped her hips as she wiggled to the music, hard enough to still her movements. “Where?” 

“Just upstairs, sweetie.” 

The uncarpeted hallway was bleak but the rooms did, at least, have doors. He wondered vaguely about disease and decided he didn't care anymore. She started to skin out of her dress before the door was quite closed, and some distant part of himself shuddered in revulsion. He dropped bills on the table that held the primitive sanitary arrangements. What did one ask for, in such places? What did he want?  

“Make me feel something."

***

Leonie was worried about Cabal. He stood in the parlour, staring unseeingly at the wall. He had one arm stiffly propped on a chair back. The other hand held his gloves. His knuckles whitened rhythmically as he squeezed them in his fist. “Cabal.” He didn’t seem to hear her. “Cabal.” His breathing was slow and shallow. He could have been ignoring her, but she didn’t think so. “Johannes, what’s wrong? Please tell me.”

His throat worked as he swallowed. “Unpleasant memories.” He shrugged. He turned his face away.

She wanted to know. But what else would she have to learn? She felt he was slipping away from her, and she did not know how or why. “Johannes, old friend?’ It was a question. It was an admission, a claim. “I think you need to tell me what’s on your mind.”

He shook his head and she quailed inside. He was silent. Still. 

But there was another way. She had to be very brave. This man could hurt her and shrug. He could accept her heart and use it for experimental material if that became more convenient. She could let him in, then lose him. Oh god it hurt, this hurt. She would try. 

She sat on the sofa. “All right. I’ll go first. This morning, you tried to kiss me.” He swallowed again. He took the chair opposite her. His eyes locked on hers, and she almost lost her nerve. She struggled to keep going under that expressionless look. Fine: she could do this without help if she had to. “You did. I thought that meant you did not regret sleeping with me. I thought that meant you wanted to continue. I said no, and you were… offended, I thought.” He didn’t answer. He gave nothing away. He just stared at her.

“I guessed the night had been, on your side, a purely… physical exercise. That’s fine, but… I couldn’t do that with you. I told you as much.” His demeanour was past still; he was frozen. She might have had more luck divining the thoughts of the clay sparrow on the mantle. 

“And then tonight, I felt like I had nothing left to lose. That everything had gotten as bad as it could, so why not spend a little more of my peace of mind, if I wanted to, and I was willing to pay the price? You seemed willing. But now, something’s wrong. I’m not assuming anything, you know,” she added in a little rush. “If you’re worried about that. Expectations. I know you must love her still. I know. I know you don’t feel that way about me, the way you did for her. I know you have your work, for Horst, and that even if you didn’t….”

“Stop. Please, just….” Cabal spoke, at last. “Stop.” His face was pinched, and he’d raised a hand to forestall her.

“Of course.” She had babbled enough already. “But I think we’ve been hurting each other without knowing it. It’s not enough to ignore it, not if we’re to stay friends. I hurt you somehow, and I'm sorry. I don't understand, but I want to make it right. Please, Johannes, tell me what I can do?” Her face showed her distress and sincerity. 

Do it again, he thought, and stifled the idea. These constant urges were _appalling_. He sighed heavily. She should know. “It wasn’t… the act itself. You make it sound,” and he was a little irritable, “like you ravished me against my will. I was,’ he averted his eyes and searched for an adjective. “I was very willing. I had reservations, but I chose to disregard them. I chose.” And he made himself meet her eyes again to make sure she understood. She didn’t. He had to tell her more, then. “After my work failed, after I left England, I was not myself. I drank. I wouldn't go out. Horst cared for me.”

It was her turn to go still. He was telling her more about the past. She wanted to know, desperately. She didn’t want to know.

“I also engaged in several… associations. With women,’ he clarified, in case she was picturing him joining the Rotary Club or the Webley Users of Senza.

Leonie felt queasy and hid it. She had no claim on Cabal. Not then, not now. She’d guessed he must have…. Well. And there was no reason he shouldn’t have _associated_ with half the chorus girls of Poloruss. An unlikely image, now that she thought of it, but somehow it was too easy to imagine Cabal repeating last night with a series of lovely young women. She wondered how she had stacked up, provincial little Leonie. She shoved the thought away: this wasn’t about her. She made herself reply. “There's nothing wrong with that. If you treated them well, and if it made you happy.”

He was uncomfortable. He shook his head. “It did not. Horst rightly said it was a mistake- a harmful practice, in my case.” He realised now that there had been no real pleasure in it, not even the physical. It had distracted him when he had badly needed distraction, and yes, it had offered a kind of release. But it had been nothing like… for heaven’s sake, he wanted her again now. Look at her, leaning toward him in sympathy, her blouse buttons straining with the angle, her hands folded in her lap as if she was restraining herself from touching him. And that look in her eyes, something liquid and pure. “I resolved to avoid casual liaisons.”

If she didn't love him, it was pure punishment to indulge this fixation further. Of course, he was already picturing himself kneeling before her chair. Discovering what she was wearing under that skirt. Kissing her neck and pleasuring her breasts until she lost all shame and ground against him, like that night in her bed. He pulled himself out of it, again. His trousers were constrictive. 

Leonie was thinking. She was trying to draw a line from this story to his difficult mood. “And what happened back at the house… and then I said it was fun… and it reminded you of a time you’d rather forget. Oh, Cabal, I’m sorry. It wasn’t some meaningless thing; I was upset when I said that. And if I’d known, I would never have, well, made advances and reminded you of something so painful.”

“Don’t be an idiot.’ The time for diplomacy had passed. “How were you to know? And did you chain me up?”

“No.” Why did that make her blush?

“Did you threaten me?”

“Of course not. Cabal, I underst-“

“Then it must have been my well-known politeness and reluctance to make a scene. That is what made me bow to your dastardly plan of….” He made an irritable gesture. “Indeed, your plans are subtle and deadly. I told you. I chose.”

“Fine. Fine, point taken. But I am sorry. It distressed you, even if I didn’t know. But…’ He could see her trying to make sense of his actions. He could see her integrating this new data he had given her. Had he wanted this? His heart sank, or rose; he was new at this. It moved, anyway. “I still don’t understand. If you are avoiding casual attachments, then why did you sleep with me? And why did you start to kiss me this morning? And why were you upset when I said… Cabal?”


	15. Chapter 15

_Some years ago._

The wind shook the trees on the valley-side by Cabal’s house; the branches rattled like the stirring of the skeleton in the guest bedroom. Cabal lay in bed, trying not to think.  If he had something to consider he sat in his laboratory or, rarely, the parlour.  The bedroom was for dressing and sleeping.  Reading, too, if he was feeling hedonistic, but not for lying awake and thinking.

Leonie Barrow had disturbed him.  No, he was disturbed regarding Leonie Barrow.  Whatever had happened, it wasn’t something she had done on purpose. She hadn’t known he would be there, after all, wouldn’t have been thinking of him at - _hydrogen helium lithium beryllium boron carbon nitrogen oxygen fluorine neon sodium_.  He would sleep.  He forced his mind into blankness.  He made his muscles relax. If this had to be considered further - and in the clear light of day, it would be laughable - he would consider it tomorrow.  Or maybe the next day.  

It welled up the moment he started to drift. The sun in her hair, her relaxed, easy manner, _magnesium aluminium silicon phosphorus sulfur chlorine argon_ … he’d always liked argon.  Noble.  Inert.  He thought about blue-green lasers and fractional distillation.  With relief, he began to slip toward sleep.  

And it flashed behind his eyelids like lightning. _His arm around_  potassium calcium scandium titanium vanadium chromium manganese iron cobalt nickel _her turning her face up to_ copper zinc gallium germanium arsenic _the sudden urge to draw his gun and shoot the man between his smug eyes and the flame of pain that licked up out of nowhere and_ this wasn’t working, was it.  He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. He pushed his fingers through his hair. Hell.  How had this happened?  He had dropped in on Leonie.  He should have worked on the garden instead. Or shot himself in the foot.

He never announced his visits.  He liked to manifest by her elbow unexpectedly or finish his breakfast as she walked into a café.  It was a sensible precaution, and maybe there was a little pleasure in seeing her face light up in surprise. Sometimes she told him to sod off, but more often she admitted she was unoccupied or quietly rearranged her plans.  

This morning he sat on a park bench; her newsagent was in this direction, and she did the crossword on Saturdays.  He had questions for her, research for a project, but that could have been accomplished by letter.  He was really here for intelligent bickering and lunch. He was here, and he no longer felt a qualm about admitting it to himself, for social reasons.  She was late.

And there she was: but she was not alone.   She was walking with a man, arm in arm, openly affectionate. She looked up at the man’s face, and….   _Hilfe_.

Cabal's heart pounded in his ears.  There was a rushing sound.  He held his newspaper still until they passed.  The pages shivered as he refolded it.  He stared at nothing, not even their retreating backs. Who had that been?  Jack, a distant part of his brain supplied.  She had mentioned a Jack last time, hadn’t she?  There had often been a Robbie or a Jack or an Oliver or a William.  They came and went.  Why should he care?  So, she saw a man sometimes.  Or maybe a woman, he didn't pay attention. Mary? There might have been a Mary. Maybe more than one. He’d had them researched sometimes, as a precaution. He’d never bothered to _look_ at any of them.  

They were walking away from her rooms on a Saturday morning.  Had that man just spent the night with her?  That was vulgar speculation. It was not his business.  Cabal suddenly imagined himself walking with Leonie.  But this time, she looked up at him and laughed and raised her lips to….  He cancelled the thought with a violent negation.  No, and no, and never.  He stood and walked in the direction of the train station.  Only work would help now. 

He walked through his front door directly down to the cellar. He worked into the small hours of the morning, though he ruined one slide in three and almost vivisected himself once.  Each time, he became angrier.  Each time, he became more frightened. Selenium.  Bromine.  Krypton.  Everything in its proper place.  He gave up at last, exhausted and confused. He rested a hand on the embalmer’s slab upon the false floor.  He was too afraid to move it. He was too afraid to see her face.  

Now, an hour later, he lay in bed. _Rubidium. Strontium._  What was happening to him?  He rose and dressed in a housecoat and slippers against the cold.  He descended the two flight of stairs to the cellar.  He forced himself to raise the block. 

There she was.  Dead.  For now, only for now.  He looked upon her face, which was not Leonie’s face, though the two looked so very alike.  In death it was hard to see the differences, but his memories of her were fresh.  

He felt the same.  It was always the same.  He would rather die ten times over than see her in a grave, would spend his life searching for the way to revive her and count it well-spent.  The wave of relief made him weak, and he lowered the block slowly, with great care. The film that had grimed the world was wiped away.

He walked up to the kitchen and realised he was hungry. He made tea and toasted something; the familiar motions and thoughts (warm the teapot; measure tea; the _verdammt_ cupboard hinge still needs fixing, it's always something; is the bread still good?) were soothing. He began to feel tired. He sat down to eat. But. A thought arrested him, mid-bite. But Leonie Barrow.  

He chewed, not tasting anything. What had this morning meant? He wanted to dismiss it. That temptation had a sleazy, seductive feel; it shimmied its fringe and leered at him. Act like it never happened, it whispered; hope it never would again. He distrusted the impulse. 

He was attracted to Leonie. He didn’t think about it more than he could help; it was distracting. Could it have been sexual jealousy? He made himself consider it, like a tailor holding up an unflattering garment. 

He cast his mind back; he thought about soul-science on the train there. He arrived; he thought about where they might go for lunch. He bought the newspaper. He had taken up his position and felt a faint, correct sense of pleasurable anticipation while he waited to surprise her, as if he was waiting for a precipitate to form. And then, a Niagara of emotions he could not identify. A disappointingly conventional desire to walk up to the man and strike him. A somewhat less conventional desire to stab him in the femoral artery and tip him into the river. _He would bleed out into the swift, cold current in a matter of minutes._

But why? His toast hung from his hand, forgotten. Her dalliances had never affected him. She even cancelled plans when he had something pressing. She didn't talk about the men much, except to needle him: even that she did gently. 

She deserved better than them, of course. She deserved devotion, and a man who could appreciate not only her beauty, but her logical mind, her boldness, her patience. If she wanted partnership, she should have someone ambitious, intelligent. Someone she could rely upon, who would treat her entirely as an equal. Someone who could offer respect and complete loyalty, who would kill or die for her, if the situation called for it. Someone serious-minded and… and… even to Cabal, this began to sound suspicious. “Someone blond and _hessisch_ , whose name begins with a J?” His forehead in one hand, he sagged over the kitchen table. He had ruled this out, hadn’t he? His affections were unchanged, weren’t they?

Leonie had looked so happy with that man, for a moment. So at home, so delighted. There had been real affection in the kiss. The memory was unbearable; had he ever made her that happy? Maybe. Once or twice, for a moment. 

But here was the poison on the blade: for the first time, he had thought, _yes._ He could be that man, the one who walked with her on a Saturday. The one who had risen beside her that morning. The one who returned her lighthearted kiss. He was sure, now, that it was within him somewhere. And although it finally felt infinitesimally possible, he still wasn't going to try. 

Anyone who had met the icy necromancer, immaculate, quick to anger, bathed in an aura of scorn and formaldehyde, would have been unable to recognize the rumpled, sagging man at the table. He whispered a single obscenity at his plate. The human heart was more complex than he had realised.

***

Horst spun Leonie in an extravagant circle that grazed the boundaries of the dance floor, vampire reflexes guarding her from collision.  She whooped with laughter and leaned on his arm.  Cabal left.  He needed some air.  

They had been drawn into a little werewolf trouble in France, and Horst, who lived in Poloruss these days, had been kind enough to join them. Leonie was preoccupied with the final stages of her Ph.D., but at Cabal’s appeal, she had come, too. He was almost finished his work. He hadn't told them. He expected setbacks and delays, but he felt very, very close to a working theory. He was hopeful. He was terrified. 

He looked up and tried to find the stars though the clouds. There was a breeze. A localised breeze that resolved itself into a brother. “You aren’t dancing." 

He replied without looking down. “I have recently given up my dream of competing on the ballroom dance circuit.  I’m sorry, Horst, I should have told you first."

Horst waved the brittle words aside.  “That's not what I meant.  It’s more that you’re fussed about not dancing. Normally there’s an air of quiet derision.”

“Why would I be agitated?  Should you have left Leonie alone?" 

“I can hear everything going on in there.  And I don’t know why you’re fussed; that’s why I’m asking.  You’re unhappy, and….’ Johannes’ eyebrow slid up in supercilious enquiry. Damn him, Horst thought. What good was being a vampire if you couldn’t do the eyebrow thingy? How did one learn? But Johannes could do what he liked with his eyebrows, Horst knew he wasn’t wrong. His brother had been unhappy when he left the inn. He was fidgety now, grouchy and sad and….

 A memory nagged at Horst. Something about dancing. Ah! A Christmas party, when he was home from university.  Johannes had dutifully partnered two or three girls, but he had scarcely taken his eyes from...  Ah, yes. 

That. That had been the look on Johannes’ face, longing and envy. It had happened at last. Horst felt like a springtime hiker who looks down to find that he is, suddenly, on very thin ice.  "You know, little brother.’  He checked his sleeve, doing his best impersonation of A Casual Man Inspecting His Suit. “I think Leonie Barrow would dance with you, if you asked.”  

Horst was surprised when his brother laughed shortly.  “Leonie,’ he replied, “has enough partners already.  And I’m not going to dance.”

“I wonder.  You used to."

“Under protest. I don’t now."

Horst wasn’t sure how to proceed from here.  His brother had changed, over the years; he was a little less ruthless, an iota more open. Still, so far as Horst could tell, he never allowed himself an emotion that hadn’t cleared a subcommittee.  But he was friends with Leonie. 

 On the train, Horst had draped a table napkin over his head and given an impression of the nun who was headmistress of their first school. Leonie had laughed so hard she started snorting, and Johannes’ face had softened as he watched her. He couldn’t do anything by halves.  He couldn’t just fancy someone; he had to fall ruinously in love with the least likely person around.  He couldn’t just grieve; he had to dedicate his life to the reversal of death.  He couldn’t just be smart; he had to be brilliant, make himself brilliant through sheer will if he wasn’t smart enough already. What was an older brother to do? “I worry about you, Johannes.”  

Once, that would have made him angry.  “I know what you’re getting at. I’m not stupid. But I will never forget her, and I will succeed.”

“No. I haven't forgotten her either. But….’ He changed his mind. “Forgive me.”

“There is nothing to forgive. Come, let us rescue the locals from Miss Barrow.”

***

_The present_

Leonie looked up at him. _”And why did you start to kiss me this morning? And why were you upset when I said… Cabal?”_

She had been reading her fears into Cabal’s silences since he arrived, she thought. But all he had to was admit that she had seduced him; it had been a mistake. After all, she’d grabbed his hand and dragged him to her bedroom. But he didn’t say it. He didn’t meet her eyes: and then he did, and the other possibility, wispy and tenuous until now, gained shape and substance. What if she had been wrong? What if she had been too frightened to consider the truth? What if he….

He spoke. “Are you _joking_?” 

Oh, god, had she made an idiot of herself? “What the hell does that mean? I am not joking. There has been some ambivalence in your recent behaviour, Cabal, and, and mine, and I….” Her eyes watered. They stung. She coughed. The room was full of smoke.

The room was full of smoke, and they’d been staring at each other like hypnotized frogs. It crept along the ceiling in the half-lit parlour. The hall was thick with it. It came from the kitchen. “Fire!” she yelled, as loud as she could. Cabal gave her an odd look. She went toward the kitchen.

He was behind her. “We have to go. This house is made of matchsticks and balsa wood.” She went to the kitchen door. There was too much smoke, and she could see flaring light; the fire was not some smouldering tea towel she could douse in the sink. It was real flame. She shut the hallway door. The other door was closed already, to keep cooking smells out of the dining room drapes.

“Fire,” she yelled again.

“Yes, I know there is a….” She passed him on the way to the door, and he followed.

***

Cabal was relieved to be out of the house. “Fire,” Leonie cried. He heard a voice take up the call from a nearby window. Maybe not for the first time, because a bell rang towards the centre of town. Lights were kindling at the Wilson’s and at the Smith’s. 

“Be careful. It might have been kindled to drive us outside.”

“Then I hope they like company. This is Penlow.” She was already gone, running around the house to see the fire. Cabal expected to find the kitchen lit with flame from within, sparked by a wiring defect or an accident, but the whole exterior wall was alight. The flame spread from a bucket by the corner of the house. He made an abortive movement towards it, but he didn’t need Leonie’s warning to tell him to stop; its work was done. The fabric of the wall had caught, and he only risked scattering the burning material farther. 

The bell continued to ring in the distance. A neighbour came over, bare ankles in boots and a raincoat thrown over her nightgown. “Leonie, petal, are you all right? Is… is your friend? Is everyone out?”

“Yes, Elsie. Oh god, when will they get here?” 

More lights came on in bedrooms, then in kitchens. Doors slammed and hastily dressed Penlowites emerged carrying lights. 

The wall was bathed in flame. The shingle peeled before it blackened and burned. Cabal paid no attention to the growing knot of neighbours, except to look for signs of guilt.

A purr in the distance built into a roar, and a noisy gas-powered vehicle turned the corner and stopped in front of the house, neighbours backing away and waving it in. It was a long, low-slung affair, and in the flames and lantern-light Cabal could see it was painted a deep, lovely red detailed with gold. A triple ladder was clamped above the passengers’ heads and the brasswork shone with loving care. It drew a heavy closed trailer with hose ports.

Four crew in light protective gear occupied the seats, but an assortment of young men clung atop the hose bin. Leonie’s voice rose above the hubbub. “Ben, Charlie, Rose! Mr. Sutton! Thank you!” A woman pushed a mug of tea into Leonie’s hand and drew her aside. The men - people, he corrected himself, when a sour-looking woman with a kerchief over her head began to unship the hose - set about their work without a fuss. 

Cabal found himself ringed by solemn-faced men. His pulse sped. They had recognized him here, now? It would be an awkward moment, with a crime obviously in process and Leonie distracted by her home burning. Perhaps he could use the chaos to escape. He would contact Leonie as soon as humanly possible. Faster, if he didn’t have to depend on humans. 

He was calculating how best to break the ring around him when he felt a touch on his shoulder. He flinched away, only to feel another on the other side: a firm, manly pat. “Don't worry, son,’ said his second comforter. “They'll have that mess out in a minute, see if they don't.” Distracted, Cabal was dealt a no-nonsense clap on the back which was followed by a further shoulder pat from a newcomer, as a sort of grace note. Another voice spoke up. “Thank you for getting our Leonie out. Did you take much smoke, first? Here, Andrew, bring this gentleman some tea.”

Cabal spent the next several minutes under the care of the men of the neighbourhood He fended off introductions, a ham sandwich, and offers of a chair, an overcoat, and a moment of prayer. He almost refused, from sheer reflex, a cigarette from a scraggy little resident before he snatched it out of the man’s hand. He was instantly ringed by lit matches. 

Leonie was surrounded by a similar crew of women, but she was oblivious to their patting. She gripped her mug of tea hard, dying to help but aware she had to stay out of the way. 

He evaded his minders and walked through the growing crowd, looking for anything out of order. He heard an unloved voice: was Tom Soanes here again? He spotted him at the truck, working a crank. Soanes saw him, standing and staring, and his expression said his dinner had soured on him. Cabal smiled. Some things were sweet no matter what the circumstances.

A man approached Cabal with a hip flask. He had some difficulty declining it; the fellow kept extending it towards his hand, following it carefully with his eyes. He smelled of beer. “Is Tom Soanes part of your fire department?” 

“Oh, naw. He lives too far out, and he has his beasts to mind. He was just having a late one with the lads when the bell went, and we all piled on to help.” That explained the flask and the owlish look of his ministering angel. 

A few sharp warnings made the neighbours back away, and a jet of water leapt into the air to a general hurrah. The Barrow lawn and adjoining street were bright with lanterns now, and tea and sandwiches were appearing in volume for the Auxiliary Fire Service and the neighbourhood in general. A few wide-eyed children wandered among the adults, enjoying the excitement and noise. It was the most exciting night Penlow had seen in years.

Cabal walked away from the house. His head was full of Leonie’s stricken face; he could think of no way to help, so he would find a quiet spot and smoke. He sought the far side of the fire engine. It was dark, except for the coal of another cigarette. Tom Soanes was sitting with his back to the rear wheel, smoking. Cabal turned to go.

“Wait.” His voice was quiet. Cabal paused. “So, are you together now?”

“No.” Cabal turned to go. He didn’t care to discuss Leonie with Soanes.

“Really. No, don’t go. I’m too drunk and too tired to hit you. Unless you’re afraid.’ Cabal slowed his steps. Of course he wasn’t afraid of the man. Tom tapped ash on the wheel well. “Then you ballsed that one up, didn't you. Unless you already got what you came for.” His lip curled. “And you had the gall to lecture me about hurting her.” 

Cabal’s temper flared. He shouldn’t care what Tom Soanes thought he was, but it galled him. “She won't have me,” he said. He regretted it immediately. 

But Soanes was looking at him questioningly. “She turned you down, did she?” He sounded doubtful.

“More or… more or less.”

“You told her you loved her, and she told you to go boil your head?”

“Who said I loved her?” Cabal wasn’t sure how he’d found himself here, behind this fire engine, being cross-examined about his most private emotions by a burly cowherd.

Tom groaned and rested his head back against the wheel well. He turned his head and spat on the ground. “Oh, for god’s sake. I could never discover that a southerner knew how to get a job done. You’ve just been hanging about looking at her like you’re suffocating and she’s air. And you somehow blundered your way into her bed, and you haven’t even…. Oh god, it would be funny if it wasn’t so pitiful.” He laughed silently.

“Southerner - just a moment, are you accusing me of being _English_?”

“Well you're from south of here, aren't you?” Tom waved the subject away with a drunken gesture. “I’ll say it again, if you don't understand. You say she won't have you? I say you're a fucking liar. Or a coward who hasn't tried. Kitty Barrow-“

The narrow bounds of Cabal’s patience for that pet name had been exceeded. “-Stop calling her that.” But Soanes’ next words stunned him into silence.

“-Kitty Barrow feels something for you, you posh piece of shit. And you’d better stay well clear of me in future, because for all she's thrown me over…. “ And the dark space behind the fire engine was suddenly very awkward, for Tom dashed tears from his eyes. He pressed on, his voice harsh. “For all she's thrown me over, I don't want to see her toyed with by the likes of you. She’s still a Penlow girl, and we take care of our own. Go back to London, if you haven’t the spine God gave a louse.”

Cabal was half-inclined to take his advice as he fled back into crowd on the lawn. Was this town conspiring to drive him mad? What had Soanes said?

The fire was extinguished, revealing charred beams and peeling linoleum. Leonie’s apron clung wetly to the opposing wall, plastered there by the force of the hose. Everything that wasn’t burned was covered with soot and soaked with water. The women promised spare sets of everything, their husbands’ help rebuilding, their relatives’ sovereign remedies for getting smoke out of cloth and paper. 

There was a wait while Mr. Sutton, the senior fireman, walked through the house. Leonie thanked her friends and walked over to hear his report, and Cabal joined them. “It’s safe to enter. As to how it started…” he wiped spectacles furred with ash. “There was a bucket of rags, looked like. Have you been painting? That bucket might have looked like a fine place to leave a cigarette butt. Could have smouldered for hours before igniting a turpentined rag.”

“I wasn't painting. The bucket’s mine, but it was in the shed full of junk. Nothing flammable. We’ll want the police in the morning.” 

“Right you are, Leonie. I mean, Miss Barrow. They’ll be out bright and early for you.”

 

***

“Poor child, you’ll be exhausted,’ boomed Mr. Wilson. “Come stay with us, you and your guest.”

Leonie gave him a halfhearted smile. She loved Mr. Wilson and never more so than when he didn’t pause before the word ‘guest.”

“No, thank you. I’d rather be in my own bed - you understand, don’t you?” 

This was communicated to the neighbours while the little festival disassembled itself as quietly and naturally as it had formed. People had work in the morning, or pets to walk, or children to put to bed, so the last sandwiches were packed in waxed paper for the firefighters’ night hungers. Leonie distributed thanks and embraces, waved good-night to the rest, and climbed the few steps to the door, aware that Cabal was following her inside under the gaze of friends and citizens. They realised, if they hadn't before, that Tom had kept his distance from Leonie and the stranger.

There was an awful reek of doused campfire and singed linoleum in the house. Cabal opened the hall door to view the destruction. “What will you do?”

“I’ll rebuild it somehow. The kitchen wasn’t part of the original structure, so it won't be difficult. Just expensive.” Her yawn threatened to unhinge her jaw. “I must write thank-you notes to the firefighters tomorrow. They’re mostly volunteers, you know.”

“I see Mr. Soanes volunteered.” 

“Yes, he would. I’ll thank him, too.” And she went to fetch a hammer and nails to secure the doors to the kitchen.

***

Cabal awoke several hours later. He put on a dressing gown from his trunk. He stared at his door for half an hour. 

He was a man of many gifts. Intelligence. A dab hand with a blunt object. A certain flair for hatred. Introspection was not one of them, but he had been thinking. Leonie had asked him a question before the fire, and he hadn't answered it. At the time, he hadn't known what to think. 

He was far from admitting that Soanes was right, but his drunken maunderings had exposed a weakness in Cabal’s own thinking, and an embarrassing one. He had failed to communicate his feelings to Leonie. He was accustomed to her knowing his heart better than he did. Over his sneers and objections, she had decided they were friends. She had closed the distance between them an inch at a time until he admitted it, too. 

He had been expecting her to do it again. He had thought that if she returned his feelings it would just… happen. An understanding would develop, and any verbal acknowledgement would be secondary. And then, well, then it would be easy to tell her why he had left and why he had delayed so long before coming back. That was how it had been, once upon a time. 

This assumption had been unconscious and therefore unexamined. Lying in the guest bed in the hours before dawn, he had realised it was naive. They were not seventeen. So much history lay between them both, so many hurts and consolations and adventures. It seemed - and it occurred to him now that Horst would have seen this immediately - it seemed that he would have to speak without knowing how she felt. While the shock of the idea was still fresh in him, he wanted to act.

He arose, crossed the hall, and spoke. “Leonie?” He tapped on the door and waited. He opened the door; her bed was empty. 

He found her in the garden, pale blue in the predawn. She was difficult to see, at first. Her bench was has half-embraced by some leggy bush. She was dressed in trousers, boots, and a long coat. She had her automatic pistol in her hand. He revised his initial plan; her mind was on other things. “They didn't return?”

“No.” 

He felt the weight of the Webley in his pocket. He had armed himself and dressed quickly when he’d confirmed she wasn’t in her bedroom. “You could have woken me.”

“I couldn't sleep. It's my house, after all. And you're my guest.”

“Would you ever think of leaving it?”

“It's mine.” She yawned. “I suppose I should see about breakfast. Oh. Damn.” The icebox and pantry were gone.

“No need. Your neighbours have left a mountain of food on your doorstep. I don't suppose we could find a rat or a rabbit?” A bit of animal testing on the anonymous donations would be just the thing. 

She was thinking of something else. “This is escalating. A few gunshots, I can forgive. The doll’s head was creepy but harmless. But I am going to see someone in prison for setting fire to my parents’ house.” She ejected the bullet in the chamber. She looked ghostly in the predawn light. Blue-lit skin, shadowy hair. She might have been a fae woman, if it wasn't for the boots. And the gun. 

He had an impulse: “let me help you rebuild it.”

She didn't know how to reply. She tried a half-smile. “Handy with a saw, are you?” Her hair ribbon was coming untied, and there were circles under her eyes. 

“Yes, actually. But I meant….”

“I won't accept your money, Cabal. It wasn't your fault, if that's why you're offering.”

“I think it happened because I was here. Let me help.”

“Thank you, but….” She'd been taught that Barrows made their own way. And what would her father think if she rebuilt his house with Cabal’s money? More than that, she pictured Cabal writing her a bank draft, and she flinched from the idea. But a generous impulse from Cabal meant something. She considered how to reply.

He sighed. “You infuriating woman. Would it cost you so much to accept help? I am not going to require indecencies of you.”

A real smile this time. “I'll tell you what. Show up with your tool belt, Cabal, and we'll see.”

They carried a double armload of food inside. Cabal stacked his burdens on the table: a loaf of bread, a basket of yeast rolls, a wedge of cheese, a bowl of hard boiled eggs, and some assorted cutlery, plates, and condiments on loan from thoughtful friends. She added something in a covered dish, a bag of apples, and a ham.

They faced each over the pile of food. If the gifts kept up at this rate, they’d need to open a shop.

“You’re still angry with me.”

“Yes. You left. And you stayed away. I need to know why, Cabal, or we’ll never get anywhere. I’ll try to understand your reasons, whatever they were. But if we're to be friends again, you must find a way to tell me. And we're not done talking about last… damn it. Night before last.”

He would speak. But not while she was exhausted and overwhelmed. “Later. Later today.”

“Really.” 

“ _Yes._ ”

“But not now.”

“You're about to fall over.”

“I could stay awake for this.” A smile touched her lips again.

“I don’t wish to discuss it while you are excessively tired and carrying an automatic pistol.”

That forced a laugh out of her. “That will get you out of it for now. See you later, Cabal.”


	16. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But,” Horst pointed a finger at his brother, “if you do find yourself wanting it, you won’t want anything else in the world. You wouldn’t go after some grimoire bound in human skin without your silly handgun, would you?“
> 
> “How do you know the word grimoire?” Cabal asked, tacitly ceding the point.

Cabal had dreamed of a sunlit bed, full of him and Leonie. He woke up to find her hands on him, and he was confused for a moment. In his dream, the sun had slanted in through the windows of - her bedroom. This was the guest bedroom. Also, in the dream she had not been clothed. Or standing over him with an aggrieved expression. She took her hand from his shoulder.

“Wake up, Cabal. I could have riddled you with holes by now, if I’d wanted to. Would you like to have a detailed discussion with two police officers?”

She was wearing that furry housecoat again. He sat up to hide… well, whatever he could hide. “No,” he managed. 

Leonie took several steps back. Her eyes dropped from his face to his chest. “…Excellent. They’re at the door. Shall I show them up? They’ll want to interview both of us, separately.”

“I’m sure I am a match for two country police… who trained them?”

“Dad.”

Suddenly, he wanted trousers. There was no real reason to be concerned. But as an outsider he was a natural suspect, and this natural suspect didn’t take chances. “What do you suggest?”

“I’m not dressed either. Damn it, when Mr. Sutton said bright and early, I didn’t think he meant… I’ll go put them off, but hurry.”

The master bedroom looked out over the front garden. He heard her calling down. “George, Christopher. I’ll be down in a minute….” 

In less than two, Cabal fled down the stairs into the front hall where Leonie was tucking her hair into a kerchief. “Go out the back and through the neighbour’s garden, north,” she whispered.

“They’ll have someone at the back door by now.”

“No they won’t. They’ve come to Frank Barrow’s house to interview his poor, brave daughter about the fire. They aren’t expecting to find a necromancer…”

“Former necromancer…”

“Sneaking out the back door!” Their voices had escalated to stage-whispered yells. “Now go,’ she said, dropping back to a whisper. “The place will be crawling with police and insurance inspectors today, but make sure you’re back by seven. The dance starts at nine, and we’ll need time to dress and eat.”

The dance. He had forgotten about the dance, and his face showed it. 

“You’re still planning to get the book for Horst, aren’t you? Don't fuss about a dinner jacket. We simple country squires won't notice. Off you trot.”

He pulled his jacket over his shoulders and slipped out the back door as Leonie showed the policemen in the front. “Come on in, boys. Oh, don’t trip on the baskets. My, the neighbours have been generous…. Oh, this is from your mother? Thank you!”

 

***

Horst and Johannes sat in a café. Johannes had a small cup of inky coffee; Horst had a beleaguered expression. 

Johannes brushed a nonexistent crumb from his trousers. “I’m not going to need evening dress. I’m going to Penlow-on-Thurse, not Paris. Do you remember Penlow? I’m not sure they’ve seen a dinner jacket before. They probably just dine in tweed.”

Horst shuddered at the bare idea of such depravity, but he rallied himself to pursue the argument. “First, you don’t know she’s in Penlow. She might be in London. She might actually be in Paris. I agree, there’s a decent chance you won’t need it. But you’ll need it some day; that object you're inflicting on me these days….”

“That is a perfectly serviceable jacket. Besides, I don't go to parties.”

“But,” Horst pointed a finger at his brother, “if you do find yourself wanting it, you won’t want anything else in the world. You wouldn’t go after some grimoire bound in human skin without your silly handgun, would you?“

“How do you know the word grimoire?” Cabal asked, tacitly ceding the point.

“Being your brother is an education in itself. Forget that.” Horst leaned forwards. “Johannes, when you keep your mouth shut and when you don't have one of your usual expressions on your face, you're almost handsome. A good dinner jacket can make an Adonis out of less promising material than you.” Bitter experience told him that Johannes would be preparing a derisive comment on the mythological reference, so he hastened to his conclusion. “Don’t,’ he said, speaking slowly for the sake of his audience, “go to see Leonie without taking proper evening dress. I beg you.”

“I don’t think you understand why I am going to see her.” 

Horst stared at him levelly. “That’s not surprising, considering you haven’t told me. I can guess. I have my private theories. I’m not convinced _you_ know why you’re going to see her. But I do suspect that of these last several years-.”

“-Six years.”

“That for at least four of those years you have been hiding from this.”

After a moment, his brother replied. “I’ve been researching your condition.”

“You’ve been treading water, and you know it. Oh, hell, I don’t mind, Johannes. I want out, but I haven’t grudged you a day of it. You needed the time to grieve. I just hope Leonie will feel the same way.”

Johannes visibly gathered his patience before replying. “Horst - leaving aside the effluvium of sentimental assumptions and popular psychology that saturates that statement, let me say this. I am going to call upon Miss Barrow. If she even resides in Penlow, I expect she will refuse to see me. Regardless, Frank Barrow will likely assault me, again. If she does see me, it will probably be for the pleasure of abusing me verbally. If I am very lucky, she will also agree to help me with an acquisition I have in mind. I do not anticipate needing _evening kit_ at any point on this spectrum of reception.” He gave his brother a critical look. “Furthermore, I decline to be your dress-up doll. I’ve seen your evening kit, and you look like….’ Cabal groped for vocabulary. “ _Ein Gigolo_.”

“You wound me, Johannes. Of course I wouldn’t expect you to dress up to my level. I know just the place; classic elegance, that’s what’s wanted. We’ll pick out a few other things for you at the same time.”

“I’m not travelling with two trunks of wardrobe, like some actor.” 

“Heaven forfend. No, we’ll send it on to London. You are thinking of going back to live in England, aren’t you?” Horst asked with some diffidence. It surprised him, but he found he liked having Johannes nearby. 

“I honestly don’t know. I might settle in the _Siebenbürgen_ instead, for easy access to feral vampires. But I must try abroad somewhere for new texts. The libraries of London seem as good a place as any.” 

“Oh, yes. The libraries.”

Johannes looked at him strangely and nodded. “Yes, that is what I said.”

Horst continued. “It’s the libraries. That’s why you’re returning to England.”

Cabal frowned at him. “Are you feeling…”

“No other reason. Just the li-.“

“Shut up.” 

Horst grinned. He would enjoy the delights of having Johannes around as long as he could.

 

****

Leonie had an exhausting morning. George and Christopher took their time looking at the galvanized bucket and the remains of the kitchen, but the hose had disturbed everything, and they weren’t specialists. They'd read the insurance report before they drew any conclusions. They found hoof prints out back, but it was difficult to tell how old they were, and visitors on horseback weren't uncommon, this close to the fields. 

Georgie and Chris were good men, but they weren't Frank Barrow, even added together. They weren't impressed by her story of gunshots or by the doll’s head, which she dutifully produced. She could investigate better on her own. And then, of course, she'd bring her information to the police.

She wanted a cup of tea at the breakfast table, but the door to the kitchen was boarded up. She'd forgotten the fire, again. She’d sat at that table with her dad. She could even remember sitting at it while her mother cooked. She took two deep breaths and put the tears away. That was life. She’d eat something instead, and then she should move the food to the root cellar where it would be cooler. Her foot sent something skating across the floor. It was Cabal’s flick knife: how peculiar. It must have slipped out of his pocket this morning. She sat at the table.

The knife had a satisfying feeling in her hand: smoothed corners and curves that fit the palm. She pressed the switch and smiled as the blade flashed out. She liked switchblades, probably because her father wouldn’t have approved of the stealthy, cheap weapon. She didn't bother to test the blade for sharpness; it belonged to Cabal. This particular knife was new to her, and there was a hint of something foreign about it. He must have bought it on the continent.

Like any weapon, it wanted to be used. You only have to pick up a dagger, a gun, a sword, even a Neolithic hand-axe, and you can feel the whisper travel up your arm. Stab, slice, shoot. She eased the blade back into the handle and flipped it in the air; it dropped back into her hand as if she'd practiced it. She'd almost bought her own, back then, but she hadn't wanted Cabal to think she was imitating him. Silly, really. He wouldn't have cared. 

Where the devil was he? He would stay away until tea, she thought, to avoid police and curious neighbours. Hildy had been around with a cheese and good wishes, and Mr. Wilson had come by to bring tea and a gas burner and discuss her plans for rebuilding. His brother was in the lumber business. Dear Mr. Wilson.

She pushed breadcrumbs into a pattern on the tabletop. After she’d gone to bed at dawn, she'd dreamed of the dungeons of the Dee Society. She awoke after a meagre, gritty slumber with the dream slipping away. She reached after it, trying to wrap herself in it before it faded, but it fled. How had it had made her feel? Safe. Happy. And then she remembered the smell of old stone, and the whole came back to her.

The dream started with a sharp, hard awakening. The room smelled like stone, and her bare feet and the tip of her nose were freezing. But the rest of her was warm. She slowly relaxed. She was imprisoned, but she wasn't alone anymore.

A wool coat spread open kept the warm air in. Her head rested on a warm shoulder, and she half-embraced a warm, solid body. Johannes’ arms were wrapped around her, one around her shoulders, one heavy on her waist. When had he done that? Last night he had complained and lain there, as inert as a corpse, while she arranged herself for sleep and put an arm around him - for convenience’s sake; because she was desperate for reassurance; because he had come to get her and she was so, so happy to see him. And after she fell asleep, it seemed he had moved to hold her close.

She smiled. She not only felt safe, she had an irrational thought that she might actually _be_ safe, here in this dungeon, because he was here. She lay like that for a long while, afraid to move and wake him, happy to hear him breathe. They were together now, and they’d sort this whole imprisonment thing out in the morning. The Dee Society had better brace itself. 

And she'd faded quietly into rest again, as happy as she'd ever been, in the necromancer’s arms.

She wasn’t even sure if it was a real memory. She spoke aloud. “What do you want, Leonie?” She didn’t have an answer for herself. She stood, found a basket, and filled it with food from the dining room. She packed the food away in the root cellar. It didn't help that she was constantly thinking about dragging him into bed. But she had this growing suspicion that he was going to Say Something. Probably about why he had stayed away. She wasn’t going to get the old days back, was she? Of course she wasn’t. No-one ever did. What if he - oh god, what if he… sort of… returned her feeli… to… share… she didn’t know. 

Why did that idea made her almost as sick and cold as the idea of him leaving? “You’re a mess.” She slammed the sticky cellar door closed behind her. 

So. What if. What if he was interested in something. Something with her. She snorted to herself. “Miss Barrow, I am interested in something.” (Meaningful look.) No, she couldn’t even picture it. Or she wouldn’t picture it? What if she tried?

She made herself lay aside the obvious sexual benefits. Since the thought had occurred to her, it took a few minutes and an earnest contemplation of her revolting department head at the university before her thoughts cleared. Being in a relationship with Cabal. Something about the idea made her feel very unsafe.

There were genuinely unsafe things about it, of course: the old enemies and the victims of his crimes. There were people with good reasons to want Cabal’s head on a pike, and it was inevitable that a few would find him. She thought about vampiric experimental subjects chained up in the basement, and screams from below. She pictured herself spending the next ten years coming second to his work.

It was a grim thought. He wouldn't mean to hurt her, but she needed affection. She wanted romance. Not all the time, but sometimes, and he wasn't the warmest of men. What did he think a relationship looked like?

“Why are you trying to talk yourself out of this before it starts, Leonie? He didn’t seem so chilly a couple of nights ago, did he?”

She wandered around the house, pretending she wasn’t waiting for him to come back. She tidied the table where she and Cabal had been grazing and leaving dirty things around. Her dignity lost the struggle; she went to the front door and peeked up the street. He wasn't coming. Patience, Barrow. She went inside to write thank-you notes to her heroes in the fire department.

***

Leonie gave up waiting. She ate, bathed, and began to dress.

The dress was pale blue, with a full calf-length skirt over a soft crinoline, which would move when she danced. The fine fabric was pleated into neat little folds that wrapped around her body. It was far more elegant than anything else she owned. She'd bought it in the city, at a dim little boutique that was almost in her budget. She'd even bought shoes and gloves to match, though heaven knew she wouldn't get much wear out of them. It had been a rank indulgence, but…. It would have been rude to snub the invitation. And it had been so long since she'd gone to anything fancy. She remembered buying the dress she'd worn on the Princess Hortense: a lovely thing, in a sort of dull red. She'd felt like an heiress, wandering the deck of the aeroship alone. Until she'd come across Cabal, of course, and she'd felt like a very angry policeman’s daughter. She smiled. 

She took the dress out of her closet and brushed the folds with her fingers. This dress, she saw now, was a sign of desperation. A very pretty, expensive one, from a woman trying to recapture her twenties. A time when she had travelled, when she had thought several dresses like this might be in her future. She took it from the hanger, stepped into it, pulled it up, and put her arms through the short sleeves. The front of the dress settled against her waist and bust as if it had been cut for her. She smiled. The back, though… the back. She cursed.

She heard the front door, and then a step on the stairs and in the hall.

She threw dad's bathrobe over the dress and opened her door to peek out. Cabal was dusty from the roads. He carried his hat and bag. His brows lifted when he saw her peeking out at him. “There was another loaf of bread and a jar of preserved peaches on the doorstep. I left them on the table. How many people do your neighbours think you are feeding?”

“I moved the perishables down to the cellar where it’s cooler. I hope you ate, because you've just time to get ready. And. Sorry to trouble you, but this ridiculous dress.” Damn the thing. She'd thought she'd have Tom to help her, if she’d thought about it at all. “It's got these buttons. I can't reach them, and the fit doesn't let me….” She was talking too much. “Would you?” The shopgirl had done them up at the boutique.

She expected Cabal to complain, to make an irritated noise or to mock her. Instead, he nodded curtly and set his bag down. She opened the door to her room and retreated in a few steps. He walked in after her like a man going to the gallows.

She turned away and removed the robe. It belatedly occurred to her that the robe made it seem as if she was undressing, which she really wasn't. It was just her back. Horrifying to an elderly chaperone, maybe, but it shouldn't be much of a show after the things they'd done this week. 

She bit her lip and waited. The longer she waited, the more she was aware of her unbuttoned back.

***

Cabal was faced with a paradox. The secret with paradoxes, he'd found, was to give them a cursory inspection then ignore them. While some people enjoyed the sensation of becoming mentally tangled, he had better things to do.

This paradox seized control of his mental processes without asking permission. The dress made him want to remove it. It wrapped around her like hands, like flower petals. He wanted to encircle her waist, to run his hands up her bare calves, up her legs… what if he pushed it gently off her shoulders? Would it fall to the floor?

But then, and this was the crux of it, she wouldn't be wearing the dress any more, and he liked the dress. Of course, then she would be naked or in her undergarments, and he could not imagine complaining about that, either. What if, while she was wearing the dress….

His hand hovered above the closure. Just one hand. One hand wouldn't fasten the dress. It would slip inside, between lining and skin, feeling her waist, pressing up her ribs to her breasts. That was what he wanted. What, he realised, she might want too. He shouldn't have thought that. He most specifically needed not to think about her leaning back into him as he palmed one breast, her satisfied humming, her pushing a hand between their bodies to clasp him through his trousers….

The whole train of thought had only taken a moment. He stepped closer.

***

Leonie felt Cabal’s fingers on the lowest button and she stopped breathing. There was a light, specific pressure over each vertebra. She felt him brush the surface of the dress as his hands fell.

“Thank you.” That was too formal, but since she hadn't shivered yet, she was doing pretty well. “You’d better go and….” She turned. He was closer than she had thought. He tilted his head and kissed her.

Oh, God. It was slow. And careful. He turned her to water when he was careful. One hand caressed up her shoulder to her neck, the other barely touched her hair. He smelled of dust and leather, and his stubble grazed her lips. She hated herself for what she was about to say, but she had to. She turned away from his mouth and rested her temple on his forehead. “Remember last time.”

His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Maybe this would be-”. He cleared his throat. “No. No, you're right.”

“Damn it. I was hoping I was wrong.” She made a rueful smile to cover her frustration. What kind of a sadist had created a world where she had to be sensible instead of melting beneath Cabal’s kisses?

He might have been thinking something similar. She caught him looking at her bed, and he saw her catching him, and he was embarrassed. “I'm sorry I - I'm going to dress.” 

“Off you go.” Her smile softened. “I'll need ages yet.” She fixed her hair while he shaved. She’d never been any good at putting her hair up. Either she made herself into a porcupine with hairpins, or the whole mess came exploding out of the bun halfway through the evening. She thought about his shirt open at the collar and his steady hand using the razor blade. Stop it, Barrow. 

It was half an hour later when, stockinged, shod, lightly painted, and earringed, she found Cabal in the front hall.

He was not wearing one of his eternal suits. He was in full evening kit. Black tie, dinner jacket. Elegant shoes. Hair combed back severely. The only ornament to the ensemble was the opulent sheen of the narrow satin lapel. His everyday suits were shaped for comfort and concealment, but this was slim and supple and so beautifully cut she wanted to weep. The tailoring of the hem, the smooth hug of the collar, the immaculate line of the lapel… she wanted to stroke it. Did his cheekbones always cut the light that way? Had the angle of his jaw always lifted towards his ear like something from a Greek sculptor’s fever dream? 

If that's how he had dressed in Poloruss, she thought, no wonder he'd had _associations_. She was strongly tempted to associate with him right here on the stairs. Her mouth went dry as she pictured it. Oh, god, she wanted to undo every satin-covered button herself. He was so perfect. 

Her mouth was not only dry, it was open. She wondered if he'd noticed. She shut it and swallowed. She located a joke. “I think your suit and my dress should go out on the town without us. They'd be able to get into a better class of nightclub alone.”

“And what would we do then?”

His faint smile made her feel like her dress had already disappeared. That couldn't have been flirting, could it? She blurted out a non sequitur. “I... I don't think I've ever seen you in something that didn't have a place to hide the Webley.” She recovered herself. “You look very nice. Did Horst help you choose the jacket?”

“He did.”

Of course he had. And he'd known exactly what the effect would be, damn him. Thank god he wasn't here to see her gawp-faced reaction; she could see his smug face from Penlow. Was he trying to get his brother assaulted? Maybe, she realized. She thanked the gods of vanity that she'd spent far too much on her beautiful dress. She would be able to walk into the dance next to _that_ with her head held high.

He was staring at her, too. He took in the dress, the shoes, her careful bun (from which a few curls were already escaping). He opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed, spoke. “You're beautiful,” he said simply. 

_So are you_ , she almost said. “Thank you,” she said instead.

“Shall we go?”

“Let’s.”

They exited, circumnavigating a tin of paté, a tin of tongue, a jar of blackberry jelly, a packet of what appeared to be sliced ham, and a jar of mustard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leonie's dress by ~~Edith Head~~ Miss B of missbarrow.tumblr.com. Dress vocabulary patiently fixed by Miss B. Also, the exact parameters of female gloves and formal wear in the early 20th century patiently researched by Miss B, even knowing the author was going to do whatever the hell she wanted anyway. 
> 
> Thank you, kind readers! It's fun to share this with you.


	17. Invitation to the dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dance and a quiet, uneventful walk in the garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers - thank you for your patience and your encouragement! I can't believe we're almost at 1000 hits, eh? 
> 
> A little thank-you:  
> [ Death and the Maiden Outtake ](https://cynaram.tumblr.com/post/159432534088/thank-you)  
> This would have gone around Ch. 7, but it's not a bad lead-in to this chapter, if you're in the mood for a little angst.

‘O look, look in the mirror,  
O look in your distress:  
Life remains a blessing  
Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window  
As the tears scald and start;  
You shall love your crooked neighbour  
With your crooked heart.'

— As I Walked Out One Evening, W.H. Auden

 

Gravel crackled under the car as she inched it down the drive of Aubrey house. A servant went to the passenger side to help the lady from the vehicle but was met instead with a cold stare from a gentleman. The servant found another guest to assist. 

Leonie turned off the roadster and took the evening gloves from her reticule, pale blue to match the dress. She hadn’t wanted to drive in them. She smoothed the first one up to the elbow and fastened the opening at the wrist with the four pearl buttons. Cabal was still. He was watching her hands with an intent, occluded look. 

She felt the blood rush into her cheeks. She put the second glove on just as she had the first. She risked a look at him when she was done, and their eyes met. You didn’t notice what a small vehicle the roadster was, as long as it was in motion. Parked, it became tiny. Intimate. Cabal lifted his gaze. He put the desire away, wherever he kept such things. He turned to leave the car, and Leonie allowed herself one breath - to put it away, wherever she kept such things - before following. The night air cooled her cheeks. They walked to the house.

The western sky was painted with dull pinks and golds that shaded into a deepening blue. The yellow glow from the lamps was weak and artificial by comparison. She studied Cabal’s profile, when she could spare her attention from walking on the uneven ground in her party shoes. She let herself imagine, for a moment, that they were just going to a dance together. She could deal with reality later.

She cleared her throat. “Aren’t you taking your bag?”

“I won’t be able to carry it, and it will be more accessible here than in some cloakroom.”

“I’ve left the car unlocked, in case we're separated.”

The new owners, the Dents, received them at the door, then released them into the glow of the temporary ballroom. It smelled of fresh paint, perfume, and the night breeze from the garden blowing through the French doors. The room was packed with Leonie's neighbours. Men wore their wedding-and-funeral suits, and a few dapper souls were in dinner jackets. The women wore Sunday-best dresses elevated by their mothers’ jewelry, except for an intrepid handful who had gone deep into cedar chests and mothballed attics for finery. The older matrons were resplendent in the fashions of a generation ago - or two. Leonie was sure she'd seen a sequinned turban bobbing in the crowd, and Mrs. Macready wore her spangled shift dress with as much pleasure as in her youth, though her figure was rounder than it had been.

Leonie murmured in Cabal’s ear. “You’d better get the book now.”

Cabal had been attending her with unusual formality. “You don't mind if I leave you without an escort?”

“I. No, not at all.” That was unexpectedly gallant. “Besides, if you stay here, you'll have to dance.” She caught the eye of Christopher the policeman, who was standing with the Chief Inspector from the city. Chris brightened and crossed over to her. 

Cabal reappeared at her elbow after the dance. “Servants are setting up a late supper in the library. We will have to choose our moment carefully.”

“All right. I'll dance this next one, and then we can head out to the terrace and watch.”

“Good. And here is the lord of the manor to exercise his feudal rights.” Cabal jerked his chin rudely at Mr. Dent, who was closing in on Leonie like a man who did not mean to be denied. 

“Fine, but….” Cabal was gone. 

Mr. Dent was a good partner, but she rather thought he was dancing with her dress. They made conversation about Penlow and her father. Cabal circled. Halfway into the dance, Leonie saw a familiar broad shape: Tom had come after all! And he was dancing with Hildy. Excellent, she told herself. But his expression was heavy, and for as long as Leonie could watch them, he didn't say much in reply to her chatter.

Only half the dance had passed when a servant called Mr. Dent away to meet a late arrival. He must have been distracted, because he left her on the dance floor, an obstacle to oncoming dancers. “You can't buy class,” Leonie muttered to herself. She escaped the swerving couples without harm, but her dignity was injured. She took a glass from Elsie-the-butcher’s-daughter with a smile, but she wasn't enjoying herself as much as she'd hoped. Maybe Cabal had already taken the book, and they'd be able to leave at the earliest polite moment. Where was he, anyway? 

“Leo! Leo, you look lost, love.” It was Alice, one of a group of young wives who had made kindly attempts to draw her into their set. They were watching the dancers and keeping Mary company, who was too vastly pregnant for the faster dances.

“You aren't dancing with your handsome guest. He shouldn’t have abandoned you, but I wouldn't have let him get away so easily.”

Leonie smiled. “He's not a dancer, really. I'm surprised he came.”

“Has he been here before?” Mary asked. “I could swear he looks familiar.”

“Once or twice, when dad was alive.” She searched her memory, trying to remember if Mary had been at the carnival or not. 

“We saw Mr. Dent cast you adrift in the dance back there. Be honest, Leo, did you kick him in the shins?”

“Duty called.” She wouldn't criticise the man at his own party, even if he deserved it.

“Well I think it was rude, even if he is the host,” another said.

She liked them. They had included her, even though they hadn't been close in school and she wasn't married. She couldn’t share their talk about husbands and infants, and they couldn’t share hers about the university, but they had tried.

A flurry of whispers heralded an approach. “Here he comes now!” “He's a bit stiff for Leonie.” “I like them stiff.” “Oh, hush, Alice, aren't you ashamed?” “No.” They hushed at last and faced Cabal with four identical smiles, the line punctuated by Leonie’s bemused face. He didn’t precisely blench at the array of female inspection, but he did slow his approach warily. Leonie took pity on him and joined him, aware of the women's eyes following her. She hoped they hadn't made a mistake, bringing Cabal to a party where he might be recognized. She scanned the crowd, dividing the guests into those who might have been at the carnival, and those who couldn't. She almost jumped when Cabal spoke in her ear.

“Too many servants; they're setting up some vast vulgar ice sculpture. We can try again later.” The band was between songs now, refreshing themselves with pints stowed below their chairs. Cabal’s breathing was shallow, and it was hard to tell in the artificial light, but she thought he was a shade paler than usual. 

“Are you all right? Has someone recognised you?” She considered escape routes; the bulk of the room was between them and the hallway, but they could surely make it into the garden. Damn these shoes, she thought. Should she risk a turned ankle or tetanus from a barefoot run?

“What? No. Nothing of the kind.”

“Good. Good. One of those ladies thought you looked familiar, so I was already fretting.” She relaxed. “Do you want me to join you on the terrace?” Mr. Wilson was approaching her, and she smiled at him automatically. The band was striking up a waltz, and he would enjoy taking her for a turn. 

Cabal slid between them like a black-enamelled knife. “May I have the honour of this dance, Miss Barrow?” He made a small, correct bow and offered his hand to lead her to the floor. 

She stared at his hand for a moment. Dancing? Cabal? She strove to reconcile the ideas. Might he be making some sort of joke, with this elaborate courtesy? But no. He was nervous. His face was more than usually impassive, but she saw him interrupt his next breath to swallow. He was in earnest, and he was nervous. 

Mr. Wilson was annihilated. She nodded, put her hand in his and tried to look as dignified as he; a giddy smile was bubbling up, touching her face. 

It was tempered after a moment by the thought that she'd never seen Cabal dance. Could he? Most people could, at least a little, and thankfully, the band was only starting a waltz. Even if he was terrible, she could suffer though one dreadful dance for Cabal. It only mattered that he had asked her, and been nervous about it.

She saw glances from the other guests. Penlow was watching; curiosity that had been piqued the night of the fire was not adverse to further food. Tom was outright staring, and he was the subject of darted looks as well.

They found a still corner in which to start. She barely rested her glove on his shoulder. He encircled her waist with his arm, placing his hand in the small of her back. To her shock, he pressed her closer until her waist met his. Her eyebrows rose; this was not how she had been planning to waltz with Mr. Wilson. They were close enough to kiss, and his right leg was pushing at her crinoline, almost between hers. “Lean back from the waist a little,” Cabal said quietly. “I won't let you fall.” She leaned back but felt uncomfortable giving any of her weight to his hand. He took her right in a curious hold, his thumb pressing gently into the palm of her glove, his hand cradling the back of hers. She was already out of breath.

They waited for a moment, to find a space in the dance. She was aware of his strong shoulder under her palm; the warmth of his hand on her back; the angle of his jaw, not so far from her lips if she was to turn towards him.

They stepped into the dance. It was fast, faster than the waltzes Mrs. Wilson played at church dances, and the floor cleared as older couples tried it for a few steps and dropped out. Cabal slipped them into the stream without a pause. 

His dancing was perfectly in time, smooth and assured at a pace that nearly took her off her feet for the first few bars.  He must have been waltzing since he could walk. She should have known. Leonie knew full well she wasn’t a great hand at the waltz, but she had taken her share of turns with Mr. Wilson, and she knew the steps, at least.

She did her best to match him; she was no great dancer, but she’d had some experience at following his lead. And with their waists, _waists_ , Leonie reminded herself, in contact, she could easily feel where he was about to move. It developed into something beautiful: not showy, but there was an ease to their doubled bodies. Their steps circled some still point between them. 

She relaxed, leaning into his hand in the small of her back as he’d directed her, and her balance became easier. He didn't spin her into showy steps. They danced for dancing’s sake, turning around the floor until the floor seemed to be turning around them. The giddy smile resurfaced and bloomed onto her face. She laughed and tilted her head back; this felt like flying.

The closeness of the hold meant their legs brushed; his hand on her back kept a steady, warm pressure, and his hold on her hand was gentle and relaxed as they whirled. When the music came to as stately a close as five men could manage, Leonie felt like she was like getting off a ride at the fair. _Let's go again!_

The other dancers dispersed, and the band tried a few chords of the foxtrot that would follow. Cabal released her waist slowly and stepped back. She could see his face again. He offered her his arm to lead her from the floor. The terrace held a few smoking men and murmuring couples. It offered a good view of the library, where the servants were indeed still struggling with an ice sculpture of a woman - Ceres? - but he led her through them, into the garden. Leonie could hear the echo of tomorrow’s gossip: Leonie Barrow danced very close with that blond stranger, they’d say. And then they went into the garden. Did you see Tom Soanes’ face?

By Caroline Herschel's polishing arm, Cabal thought, what the hell had happened during that waltz? Why did it still surprise him when she transformed something familiar? She'd been like a blue flame pressed against him, her skirts licking around his legs. When she’d leaned back on his arm and laughed, he’d forgotten the steps, forgotten the music in the perfection of Leonie leaning on him, laughing, having _fun._ She could have fun with him. She had. 

The new owners’ landscaping was complete: the slender trees were supplemented with shrubs and walls to create winding, labyrinthine paths. Lamps burned at intervals to show off the terrain, but there were deep shadows between. They selected a path at random. The flagstones were uneven beneath Leonie’s heels, and she took Cabal’s arm again.

He broke the silence. “Thank you for the dance. You waltzed beautifully.” 

“Are you feeling quite well, Cabal?” 

He sighed. “Can't you take a compliment?”

“What if you gave me some practice?” She was still drunk on the dance. It was so lovely, teasing him again.

He had never seen her smile so enticingly; cautiously, he chose flirtation. He could try. He had seen it done many times. “You're beautiful in that dress?”

But Leonie shook her head sorrowingly. “Tsk, tsk. That's a step down. Not an hour ago, I was beautiful, full-stop, and now it's contingent on the dress?” She kept her voice light and gentle. Their path entered and left pools of light cast by the lamps. The moon was behind a cloud.

“Fine, I take it back.” Cabal felt he was losing ground. “You are not beautiful in that dress. And you did not dance well.”

He earned a critical look. “I don't think you're getting the hang of this.”

He turned it around on her. “Would you show me how?”

She nodded obligingly. “You’re a very intelligent man, Mr. Cabal. You’re a very attractive man, Mr. Cabal. You’re a very good dancer, Mr. Cabal - see, it works when it’s true.”

“When it is true and also means absolutely nothing?”

They came to an open flagged space where several walks converged and departed. A flower bed planted in wedges held the centre, punctuated with a sundial. The whole bore an unintentional resemblance to a roulette wheel. 

“You're still my best friend.”

“What?”

“That sounds childish, I suppose.” He'd sounded bitter, and she'd wanted to tell him something nice, something real, but now she felt foolish. Her fingers found his hand and squeezed it.

His hand closed around hers. He stepped as close as if they were dancing again. “Leonie.” He bent over her. “Johannes. Call me Johannes.” His lips moved to her neck and she closed her eyes at the sensation of his kisses along her artery, on the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder. He grazed her with his teeth, and she pressed against him and hissed his name. He shuddered when he heard her, and the hand on her back tightened, pinning her in place as he brushed the skin under her ear with light kisses. One of his hands dislodged a hairpin, and her hair fell out of the carefully arranged bun.

Her hand caressed his neck. She wanted to feel his skin, his hair, but she was wearing the ridiculous gloves. He must have thought the same, because he released her, only to take hold of her arm. He stripped the glove from her hand in one tug, turning it inside out and sending the tiny buttons scattering on the stones of the path. 

He raised her palm to his lips and kissed it. After the confines of the glove, the touch of his lips was explicit, as intimate as if he was between her thighs. Her breath was short and fast, and she was staring at him, hair disarranged, one glove on the ground. He whispered something she couldn't catch and pressed her wrist to his lips ardently. 

She wanted to find an unlit corner of the garden, forget about the book, and make him forget his own name, in that order. They kept doing this. They had to stop. “Johannes, wait. I'm so confused. Johannes, pay attention.” She took his face in both her hands and stared into his eyes. “You are going to tell me why you stayed away. Now.”

He straightened. He took his hands from her. He remembered where they were and why. “I know. I'm sorry. I’d meant to propose marriage… before we… before anything like…. first, but as it happened….” He stopped, made himself organize the thought. “I'd meant to propose marriage.”

Leonie had taken a moment to catch up. “What?” It came out louder than she'd meant, and incredulous. “Cabal. Johannes. What…?”

“It’s the usual step, is it not?”

“When reappearing on someone’s doorstep after six years?” Her voice was too loud, but her confusion amounted to outrage. This conversation was supposed to clear things up! Did he mean it was the usual step after sex? Surely he wasn’t that medieval. 

“It is the usual step when….’ Cabal looked back down the path, hoping for pursuit or rescue. Something had usually been chasing them, in the old days. It had made it easier to ignore this kind of thing. He reluctantly abandoned hope that a gaggle of ghouls would come along and break the conversation up. “When one is in love with someone. Over many years.”

Some unusual meteorological phenomenon must have been operating in the garden. All the air vanished from Leonie’s lungs. Her heart was sure that couldn’t be correct. It sped up, in case her muscles needed extra oxygen for running. Her ears hummed, and the garden went fuzzy. The word ’marriage’ had passed uncomprehended, but the word ’love’ struck her like a bullet.

He stood a few yards away in a fencer’s stance, his shoulder turned towards her to present a narrower target. He watched her. 

She had to find something to say. “Would this hypothetical ‘one’ be you?”

“Yes.”

“You say you love me.” She would force herself to be methodical about this. After all, he’d stopped short of using names.

"Yes, love.’ His exasperation, her old friend, bubbled to the surface. His stance relaxed.  “Do you think I am not capable of it?" 

She felt a little better. His irritation grounded her, made her feel like she knew him again. "I've never been sure what you were capable of.’ His brows lowered.  “No, really, that's not a cheap shot.’ A little exasperation of her own coloured the words. “You're not exactly like everyone else, Cabal, you know it.  What does that word mean to you?" He must be about to say something that could make this comprehensible. _I have a duty to pass on my superior genes_. Or maybe he was under a curse? 

“What do you think it means, you impossible woman?” 

“All right. Fine. You said ‘years.’ How many?” Surely he had concocted this idea in Pasiná. He had been miserable with grief, and she’d been a hazy memory. 

The mulish set to his jaw eased, then vanished. “Before I went away. Some time before.”

What?

“I loved you only a little, at first. Your courage. Your kindness. Then I loved you in unguarded moments, when we were together. I would see your face laughing or angry, and I would feel it. Imagine my surprise when I found, one day, that I warmed to your smiles, disliked your displeasure. I turned aside from my work to be near to you, to share your company. It terrified me. I began to love you in thoughts that occurred and left before they could be suppressed, when something reminded me of you, or in the moments before sleep. Then I loved you in worry, in anxiety, and in long wakeful nights. Finally I loved you every day, every hour, sleeping or waking, drunk or sober, in pain or at peace.” 

Leonie badly wanted a place to sit down. The heels that hadn’t troubled her during the waltz were a bad choice for flagstones. It was not that her legs were unsteady. It was not that her knees were weak. 

“But you loved Her." 

“I loved her too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did I. I thought I was going mad at first. After a time, I came to feel that it was not so strange. You were worthy of love; I could not deny that. I loved you.” He shrugged.

“But - and I hope you’ll forgive the question, Cabal - what does this have to do with your going away? What does this have to do with your not coming back?” It broke upon her as she said it, a wave of sick cold feeling, what the answer would be. 

Cabal looked away. He gathered his resolve, she could see it. Why did he have to look so beautiful to her now? 

“I failed to resurrect her. And when I failed….” His throat contracted around the words and he bowed his head. She wanted to go to him. She couldn’t. She had to force this to its crisis. The night insects whirred in the darkness.

Her voice was clear and emotionless. “When you failed, you wondered if it was your fault.”

He made a quick gesture of assent. It seemed to unlock his throat. “I spent years asking myself how I had failed. Was it the theory? Was it the execution of the ritual?” She could hear the echo of desperation in his voice. “And more than that, had I rushed, had I cut corners? Had I been careless?” He shook his head, not denying the words, but collecting himself. “And if I had been, was it because,” he stopped and restarted, the words slow and painful, “was it because I wanted you more than I wanted her alive again?” 

There it was at last. She asked the hardest question.  “Was it?” 

He looked up and seemed to surface from the memories. He saw her properly. There was a faint smile for an instant, and then it fell away.  "I don't know.  I don't think so, but I will never be sure.  I will have to try to forgive myself as she would have.” 

“I think you’re absolutely right.” That was shockingly insightful from Cabal. 

“Good. It is a conclusion it has taken me six years to reach.” He paused and looked disconcerted. “I only articulated it just now, actually.” 

“But let me finish answering your question. I told you I walked, after I destroyed my house, did I not? I walked until I collapsed and was taken to an inn.”

“Yes.”

“The inn was in Ewebury.”

“But that's….” She couldn't make sense of it.

“Yes. I was walking here. To you. I don’t remember that day. It’s a haze. I think… the world was hell, and there was one person from whom I might have been able to accept comfort.” 

“I wish you’d come.” Leonie said it so softly, she wasn’t sure if Cabal heard it.

“I awoke in the inn, clear-headed. Well. I believed I was clear-headed; now I think my judgement was not sound. I was revolted at the idea that I might reward my failure by going to you. I was nothing. I thought I was nothing. I went to Horst, and he kept me alive until I could make myself eat and sleep and study.”

“I never understood you would suffer, believe me. You had friends, family, lovers; surely you would forget me. Horst tried…” He made an impotent gesture. “I would not listen. I was frantic at the thought that you might hate me for… no. I was frantic at the thought that you might not hate me. I hated myself so much that the thought of your kindness was unbearable. I could not bear Horst’s, either. I could bear only my own self-hatred and the things that poisoned me. I indulged those feelings at your expense, for five years or more.”

“I wish you’d come.” Leonie said it louder. It was almost a sob.

Cabal looked at her with pain in his eyes. “Of course, if I had bought a _train ticket_ instead of walking, I might have arrived for breakfast. The subconscious is so dramatic. I would have appeared on your doorstep, half-mad. Your father would have been alive. But I was… Horst had a great deal to put up with.”

He was silent for a moment, then resumed. “I thought of you hourly, through all of it. I tortured myself, asking myself if my affection for you had made me a murderer. Later, I told myself I had blood on my hands, and you would despise me if I came to you. But I dreamed of you at night, sick with alcohol. I longed for you in the beds of other women. I… this is ugly. I am sorry.”

Even in the dim light, she could see the dark colour in his face, hear his ragged breathing. He fought the memories down. She had a terrible desire to go to him, to forgive him and tell him that all was well now, that she would make sure it was so. No: the story must all come out now.

He controlled himself. “I am sorry. You will ask how long that lasted. The crisis was less than a year. After, I needed quiet, order. I retrained myself in the sciences I would need to help Horst. I worked constantly. Horst told me to contact you, but though I seemed better, I was still sick. I felt I didn’t deserve to see you. I told myself it was better I stay dead. And so I did.”

She could understand it now, but it didn't stop it from being awful. “When I realised you'd been alive all that time, I wondered…” Cabal watched her patiently as her voice faltered. “Wasn't I good enough? Wasn't I important enough? Didn't you care for me? I wish I could reach back five years - or six - and hit you.” 

He smiled a small, bleak smile. “So do I.”

“You think that, but I really would put my shoulder behind it. Maybe I'd kick you, too. What changed? What made you come?”

“Horst said you loved me. Or had.”

Leonie was caught between laughter and cursing. Bloody Horst Cabal.

Johannes continued. “I didn’t believe him. I did not believe it possible, I must add, that you would still entertain affection for me. And yet. Horst is not an intelligent man, but there are a few areas in which I respect his judgement.” He expelled a breath. “If he was right, and if I had, in fact, repaid that sentiment by allowing you to believe me dead…. The least I could do was show myself so you might have the opportunity to kill me in person.”

Shocked, Leonie laughed. He had offered the words with an endearing hint of ruefulness. She laughed again, but it was edged with hysteria, and she stifled it. 

“It was somewhat more than forty-eight hours before I was certain my feelings would best be expressed in an offer of marriage. It took a little longer before I was sure you would not take an offer as an outright insult. But. I rather….” She could fill in the rest. _And then they had fallen into bed together, and nothing had been clear._ “I am no damned good at any of this. I never was. I have no idea how to win your heart or your trust or your friendship again. I wanted to turn around and leave when I saw the chess piece, the black king on your mantel. I wanted to hurt whoever had hurt you that badly. But that was I.”

“You asked me what love meant to me. If I had been able, I would have courted you.  I would have asked you to marry me.  I would have made you as happy as I was able, every day of my life, and been faithful to you. Is that what you wanted to know?” 

And there it was. A streak of conventional Hessian husband that had, apparently, always lain dormant deep, deep under Cabal’s nature. It made her heart ache to see it clearly for the first time. But it didn’t change anything. She swallowed.  "That will do for a working definition.” 

“In any case. That is why I left England, why I didn’t contact you. I wish I had been here when your father died. I don’t know what I would have done, but I would have done something. I would have been a friend to you.” 

“You were always a friend to me, Cabal.”

His hand tightened into a fist. “And this is why I have been acting like an idiot. I had only planned to see you, to tell you I was alive and back in England, and see if you would help me with the book.’ And he gave her a pained sidelong look. “And now I wonder if I have ruined everything, in one convenient screw-up. I keep losing my head.”

“Cabal.” The party seemed miles away, years. How long had they been in this clearing? “Just for a moment, consider this. Your feelings began years ago, you say. But I was convenient; I was fond of you. Remember, how often we were taken for husband and wife or l-lovers, and how it annoyed you? You should maybe… think about all the other people you might meet.” The words stuck in her throat like dry biscuit.

“Did you never think about how it might be?”

Leonie's throat dried. There was a world of meaning in that little, unstressed _it_. Yes, she had thought about it. More than she would like to admit. 

“So,” he said, taking her silent confusion for the reply it was. 

“But that doesn't mean anything,’ she burst out, more fervently than she’d meant to. “People wonder about that sort of thing all the time! What…’ she stumbled over her words; no, say it; she was arguing it meant nothing, wasn't she? “What people would be like as partners, as lovers.’ She formed the word carefully this time. “And for crying out loud, I was practically the only woman you knew.” 

Cabal cut in sharply. “People wonder about it often? I did not. I considered myself engaged, and fidelity was no hardship. But you and I became… close. I began to…. It was not often, at first, that I thought of you in that light, that I wondered, but it happened. And yes, my circle of acquaintance was limited then, but you are far from the only woman I have ever known - or have known in the time since. I did think about it. About you.”

Leonie could suddenly see Cabal, as he had been then: sitting at home, or lying next to her in a dungeon, or sitting on a train, thinking about her. She flushed, and something larger and more dangerous than a butterfly fluttered in her stomach. Had she sat across the room or in the next seat, and thought the same? Had she dreamed about him while he lay next to her, sleepless? God, those dreams. They continued after he disappeared; she woke up wet and flushed and then remembered he was gone. The sweaty tangle of desire and grief would resolve itself in tears.

Enough. She had to remember to breathe. He was standing right there, for god’s sake, watching her with an intensity that verged on suspicion. “You need time. I am your friend. I know you, and I think you're going to wake up soon and wish you hadn't said any of this.” She tried to say it lightly, a good friend giving good advice.

Her snorted. “You think I need more time? I have had years. They weren't any shorter for me. Do me the favour of assuming I know my own mind. Is that the problem, then? You think I will change my mind, because I am so fickle?” 

“Not exactly. But I think one day you’ll wake up, and - have you considered that it might be because I look like her?”

“You know that?” He was astonished.

“I saw her, remember? And Horst confirmed it for me, later.”

“You and Horst discussed…! Just how many of these cosy chats did you have?” 

“God knows we needed a support group. Horst is the only reason I didn't beat you to death with a slipper years ago.” 

He was only half paying attention. His words referred back to her question. “But yes. Of course you would think that. I thought it too, at first.’ Leonie, startled, coughed out a laugh. Cabal hadn't changed that much. He continued. “Perhaps it was true, when I first saw you. Is that all you thought you were to me, a ghost?” 

“Not all, but….”

He shook his head. “That was stupid of you. I thought you were better at understanding people.”

Her voice hardened. “Let's not hastily lump you in with ’people.’ “

“From almost the first moment I met you… I said I didn't know when I started loving you. But it could have started when you signed away your soul.”

“What?” 

“I had done that too. You were ready to sacrifice the better part of yourself for your father. And you did it with a straight back and a look that told me where I could thrust my rationalisations. I admired that. I liked you. I hadn’t liked anyone in years.”

“It wasn't a sacrifice. It was a bet.” She remembered telling her father that, as the train pulled away and he sobbed in her arms. “I bet on you. And you came through.”

“Be that as it may. I saw your nerve, your gallantry, your goodness, your indisputable gall. I saw you. So don't say I only see… see her, when I look at you.”

“Oh Cabal. Listen to yourself. You still can't speak her name.”

“Berenice.” He said it almost before she had finished her sentence. 

“But you’re still….”

“Yes, I still love her. But it is… without dishonouring it or her in any way, we loved each other as _children_. We never had the chance to live anything else. But you and I! We argued and travelled and kept each others’ faith. We fought and guarded each other, and we were tested as no married couple in a thousand is tested.”

“Every time I saw you, it was painful. I watched you dancing with Horst, and I felt like I could never have one minute of what he could, what you would give to any courteous stranger. I loved Berenice, I will always love her memory, but I wanted a life with you! But I sought you out regardless. Not because I had no choice: because your company was worth the distress. And when I lost Berenice - when I lost any hope of seeing her again - I robbed myself of you at the same time.”

“That broke me as surely as losing her. You are Leonie Barrow, and I love you more than I can tell you.”

She groped for a question, anything to distract her from that look on his face. “If you loved me so much, why didn't you tell me then?”

His expression became serious. “Did Horst tell you we were engaged, she and I?”

“No.” Horst had never spoken much about her - about Berenice - and Leonie had never pressed him.

“We were. But even if we had not been, it would have been the same. Suppose I had succeeded. If she wanted my love, or even my protection, I couldn’t withdraw the promise I’d made her. She would have been so alone. I would have been a poor substitute for everything she’d lost, but if she needed me, I had to be free, do you see? She couldn’t wake up to find that her family had buried her and mourned and _moved on_ , that her friends were matrons with children nearly her own age, that her beloved had become,” his lip curled, “old and strange and cold - and then, to find him married, perhaps, too. With a child, perhaps. And concerns and a life that she could not share. It would have been too cruel, do you see? You must see.”

“Yes.” And she did. “Of course you couldn't do that to her. You love her.”

“Yes. And the man I have become loves you.”

The moon came out from behind a cloud and illuminated the garden, stronger than the glow of the lamps. She could see the frayed tips of his hair, where she had disarranged it earlier; the fine lines around his eyes.

“Cabal. Johannes. It would never work. Where would we fit in each other’s lives? I don’t expect you to give up your experiments, or living in your lab for a week at a time. I wouldn’t stop you from moving to Novosibirsk, or wherever you plan to find subjects for your research. And I… my life is simpler. I like going to evensong at St. Olave’s. I like walking through Penlow. I want quiet evenings by the fire with someone I love. Wouldn’t we drive each other mad?”

“But my life has changed! It’s changing again, whether you are a part of it or not. And don’t speak as if Penlow-on-Thurse and the ladies’ flower arranging committee is the sum of your ambitions or capabilities. I was there when you stole the yellow veil. When you held off the zombies at the Dee Society. I was there,” he said, “when you _shot Satan in the chest_. I am not fooled by this sudden affection for tombolas and village gossip. You aren’t living here. You’re waiting. I don’t say you are waiting for me, but tell me you are not hungry for something new.”

“Come with me. Not to Novosibirsk, or even to Siebenbürgen. We could find a compromise. Yes, I must work, but you must, too. I don’t imagine you… I don’t know, keeping the house. I could help you in your profession, and you would help me. It’s madness to bury yourself here, when you could be doing so much more!” He seemed genuinely angered by the idea.  
“Also. I wouldn’t stay in the lab for a week at a time if I had a good reason, _Fraulein_ , to leave it.” 

“I would walk with you, wherever we were. I would sit by the fire. I would kiss you awake in the mornings and hold you in my arms as you slept, if you wanted it. I would show you how I loved you every day.”

Leonie didn't know hot from cold or light from dark. The confusion of her senses and her mind was complete. It was like being shown one's heart’s desire, but something in one's self pulling back and saying…. “I just don’t see….”

He was inexorable. “You’re not looking. If you don’t love me, say it. But don’t pretend to be too scared to try.”

The last time she had been absolutely certain she was not in love with Cabal, he was turning tail in a street in Senza, and she was going back to the Princess Hortense to investigate. But _loving Johannes Cabal_ had been a ridiculous idea. But after a while it didn't seem ridiculous anymore, just hopeless, so she ignored it as best she could. 

She parried. “Nice try, Cabal, but you can’t dare me into agreeing with you any more.”

He frowned. “I never did that.”

“If you say so. It certainly worked a few times.”

He didn't laugh. They walked. He crouched and pulled deadheads from the flowering plants surrounding the sundial. “I am not a good risk. I know it. I have enemies: I can’t stay in Penlow for three days without exposing you to gunfire, threats, and arson. Every day I stay makes it worse. At times I’ve acted without understanding the consequences to the people around me. To you. My sanity has been questioned. Many people - most people don’t seem worth the time of day to me.” He swallowed. “I know it.” He idly tried to read the inscription on the moonlit sundial. He waited, tensed, for the coup de grace. _I don’t love you._

She couldn’t deliver it. She wanted to do it, but not as badly as she wanted to take his face in her hands, kiss him, soothe away that look. It forced something out of her, something she hadn’t told anyone before. “I'm afraid.”

“You are safer nowhere than beside me…? That has always been true. Except for - well. It is true now.”

“I'm not worried about my safety.”

“Then be on hand to rescue me.”

“You're missing the point.”

He threw a hand in the air. “All your objections miss the point. What if you stay here, live a quiet life, and die?”

“I thought you died, and it hurt so much I just… yes, fine.” She remembered his sneering words after Tom left. “I buried myself in a life that seemed safe. But what if you really die? What if I have to watch you being killed?”

“You are worried that I will die? So will Tom. He could have a tractor fall on him, or be crushed to death by his cows. He could contract a disease or, or smother himself in his sleep with his giant pectoral muscles.” He threw a handful of wilted flower heads into the shrubbery. “He could drown. It can happen to anyone.”

“But that's just….” She didn’t know how to finish that. How would it be different, really? Why didn’t it seem as terrible if Tom had an accident? 

He swallowed and said, in a more familiar and businesslike tone, “I am sorry. I cannot be solely your friend. I would not be able to maintain the deception.” A humourless smile. “Look at these past few days. I have no control at all. If you loved me - or thought you could - I would not insist upon marriage. Just time, and affection, and the possibility of more. Do not imagine me confused or desperate. I am not looking for _someone_. You know me too well to believe it. _Everything I am wants everything you are._ I want no substitute, nor could there be one.”

Leonie's eyes filled with tears. A sob was trying to rise through her throat.

“So, refuse me. There are more than sufficient reasons. But don't doubt that I love you. Do not doubt my sincerity or my passion.” 

It pulled the heart out of her. “Leave me alone for a few minutes, Johannes.” She gave him a watery smile. “I can't think with you here looking at me like that. I need to think.” 

He hesitated, then chose a path at random. His footsteps receded, and she turned herself over to the sobs that had been fighting out of her.


	18. Farther into the garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **It has been drawn to my attention that I should note that I am Not Dead.** I am doing well, I am just starting to write a tiny bit after a long dry period, and I hope to be healthy soon. Thank you! Chapter 19 will come.
> 
> A garden, a gun, a glove: the thrilling climax of Death and the Maiden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to incognitopi, for fight advice and practical encouragement: if I'd listened entirely to her, everything would have gone way too smoothly, so I hope she'll forgive my ignoring her best suggestions; and also to @missbarrow, who assisted with insults and reticules.
> 
> Thank you for waiting for this chapter.

Cabal sagged inside his suit. He walked far enough for the sound of Leonie's sobs to fade; they tugged at him. He wanted to be somewhere quiet with her, where they could sit together and be peaceful. It seemed impossible. 

He found a bench. He tipped his head back; he noticed the moonlight, bright through his eyelids. He would rest here. He would prepare for a refusal, or for no answer at all. She deserved gentleness, no matter how it hurt.

He was so enmeshed in exhaustion and the creation of contingent plans, his first warning of his enemy was this: a voice from the moonlight. “Mr. Johannes Cabal.”

…

Leonie fumbled in her reticule for her handkerchief. The thin fabric hardly absorbed the tears, which kept coming and coming. She had a sudden mad thought that maybe, now that she had started crying, she would never be able to stop.

Someone stood up from a rock in the shadows and joined her on the bench. Tom sighed heavily. “You two still sorting yourselves out, are you?” 

She couldn't reply. She just sobbed.

“It's painful, watching you two stagger around each other.” He took a drag on his hand-rolled cigarette. “It's like two blind sheep trying to kiss through a wall.”

He smoked at his end of the bench.

When she could speak, she cleared her throat. “I didn't think you'd stoop to eavesdropping.” She was wet-faced, her hair tumbled by Cabal’s hands as he'd kissed her throat. Tom plucked his wash-softened handkerchief from his pocket and waved it at her. After a pause, she took it.

“You were shouting at each other in the middle of the garden during a party. I can't be the only one who overheard, though I admit I may be the only one who listened. God above knows why I care. There's a sort of horrible fascination to it, I suppose. You really are thick when it comes to love, Kit.”

“If you're just here to pry and be hateful, you can take your homespun wisdom and thrust it-”

He raised a hand in apology. “Sorry. Damn, but I am sorry. I am being hateful. I'm still angry at you. But I'm starting to think you didn’t have a clue.” Leonie didn’t reply, so after a moment he continued. “I’ve been thinking about you and that pompous, arrogant, sour-faced, arsehole kraut.”

“Yes?” Her tone was hardly inviting, but she felt an unwilling curiosity. Tom knew her well. What would he have to say?

“You took it so hard when your dad went. I admired you for it. I thought,” and he took a drag on his cigarette, “if you could just love me one half as much as you loved him…. And for a while I thought if I was patient, you might. But you never let yourself rely on me, never let me in. I thought maybe that died with your dad. Or maybe you never had it in you to love a man that way.” He said it without rancour. “You’d gone with a few boys, and from what I could tell you liked them well enough, but I never heard you cried over them.”

Leonie gave him an unfriendly look. “I’m not someone who gets hung up on men, that's all.” 

“None of ‘em ever hurt you.”

“So that's what loving someone is? Them hurting you? I must be head over bloody heels for Cabal, then.”

“You risk that, if you love someone. And you never did with those boys.”

“You sound like a greeting card. ‘Love is giving your whole heart….’ ”

Tom cut her off. “It's fucking dangerous and messy and it takes balls. And you’ve never done it.” He smiled bitterly. “Except you have, haven’t you. That one got through your guard somehow, and it makes you furious.” 

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a flurry of denials. She would think it through, demolish it, then give her conclusions. 

Yes, she'd always tried to hold herself a little back from Cabal. Especially as he’d once been: the student of corrupt sciences, the servant of hell. Cabal the dissectionist, who would go to the devil to accomplish his ends, good or bad. It occurred to her now that she’d never had to hold herself back from anyone else. He, of course, had held himself a little back from everyone. Everyone except her. And now he'd invited her in completely. He’d dared her to take his hand and run away into the world. 

She folded his handkerchief. “Why do you care?”

“Oh. Just nosy.” He shifted on the bench. He turned his pocket knife over in his hands. She knew that habit. “I'll give you this; you're trying. You're sweating blood, trying. I never asked half as much, but you never tried so hard for me. What’s wrong with you, Kit?”

She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. I’d have to leave Penlow and the house. Life with him would be dangerous. He’s done things, wrong things, and I just forgive him. I can't help it.”

“It sounds like the forgiving bothers you more than whatever he did. But I've never heard that's a sin,” he said dryly. “Tell me the truth Kitty.”

And to her horror, the tears threatened to start again. “Fine. Fine. God. You heard him. He loves me. You don't know him. You don't know what saying those words cost him. And,” bright blue eyes fixed Tom viciously, “don’t you ever admit I ever said this - I don't deserve what he feels for me. No-one _could_ deserve that. I do love him. I love him horribly. It half-killed me just standing and listening and not….” She bit the inside of her cheek hard.

“It’s losing him. Because it’s not a question of whether I would, it’s when.” Her voice threatened to break again. “And I really don’t think I could take it, a second time.”

Tom hesitated. “Is he dying, then? A cancer, or consumption?”

She was taken aback. “Well, no. He seems quite sound. But people like Johannes Cabal don't die in bed,” she explained. “Or if they do, it's because someone stabbed them to death there.” And deep inside, she knew; people didn’t get to keep things they loved as much as she loved him. “It's not cowardice to avoid something you couldn't stand. It's called considering the consequences.” 

Tom sighed and put an arm around her shoulders. “It doesn't make a single lick of sense, Kit. He seems well able to take care of himself.”

A laugh burbled out around the handkerchief. “He does give that impression, doesn't he?” His arm was warm around her. She craved the comfort, but she pulled away, and he didn't try to hold her. “I’m sorry, Tom. I wasted your time, and you deserved better.”

“It wasn't wasted to me.”

They sat for a little while in silence, burying the last five years.

“How long has it been?”

“Ten minutes or thereabouts.”

She didn't know how long he'd wait, and she'd rather he didn't see her with Tom. God knows they didn't need more confusion. “I’d better go find him. Even if I don’t know what to say. And I don't want an audience. Go back. Ask Hildy for another dance.”

Tom smiled sadly. They looked out over the garden for a moment.

Deeper into the garden, one lamp winked out. A moment later, all the lamps in the garden followed, leaving them in the moonlight.

Tom’s smile faltered. Leonie’s senses flared to full attention, and her suspicions awoke. Cabal had gone in that direction, she thought, though it was hard to be sure with the way the paths wound around. “Seems like the new wiring is faulty,” she said.

“Aye. I'll see you later, Kit. Which path did your friend take?”

“Why?” Tom’s question had been very casual. She let the moment stretch out uncomfortably.

“I think he took that one.” Tom waved at one to the right that was certainly not the one Cabal had taken. “Off ye go.”

Leonie gave him a strange look and took the correct path. She didn't hear Tom curse to himself, wait until she was around the curve, and follow.

She had marked the position of the lamp. She cut through flower beds, her heels sinking into soft fresh earth. She could glimpse an open area ahead. She cursed her pale dress; she would be easy to see in the half-light of the garden. She crept up to listen. 

There was a low, angry voice. Johannes sat on a bench. His arms rested on its back, but the angle of his head was alert. The speaker stood about twelve feet back. Leonie saw the moonlight glinting off the gun barrel, and everything became very, very simple. 

She moved, abandoning the cover of the shrub, but instantly she was blocked by a burly shadow; a henchman, she supposed. She kept moving. Speed was everything now. She heard a quiet curse, and something fouled her ankle. She went sprawling into the moonlight. A look behind her found Tom, arm still outstretched.

Tom! Tom had tripped her! He had stopped her from getting in front of Cabal. He followed her, moving warily. Traitor. The anger flooded her, and she snapped a hard kick at the side of Tom’s knee. He gave a muffled cry and fell like a discarded puppet.

A louder cry followed. “Oh, sweet Christ, Kit, what the hell was that for? You've put my kneecap all around to the side.” 

Cabal’s pleasure at seeing Leonie fell the ox of a farmer was childish in its purity. “Are you harmed, Miss Barrow?”

She looked at him, strange and beautiful in the moonlight, in that suit; it gave her an odd, tumbling feeling; friend, carnival owner, lover, stranger, necromancer. None of it mattered. It was Johannes. Distantly, her knees stung. One palm was scraped, too, but the other had been cushioned by her reticule as she fell. She made herself look away. “I’m fine.”

Tom spoke to the woman with the gun. “There. I've kept Leonie away from him, that's all. Now, will we sit over there and have a talk, Hildy? You have something to say, and we'll listen. You don't need the gun.”

 _Hildy._ The figure with the gun was Hildy. She merged with the shadows in her dark housekeeper’s dress, but her pale face showed clear. She had been crying, too. She held the gun on Cabal with both hands. “Since when do you know a damn thing about what I need, Tom? I need this gun, and I'll use it.” Her aim had never strayed from Cabal’s breast. “You stay on the ground there.”

Leonie tried to sound calm and appealing, like Tom. “I don't understand, Hildy. Will you explain?” She couldn’t have put outrage into the words if she’d tried. Cabal’s past was catching up with him, as it always would. Something hard in her reticule pressed into her hand.

The woman’s breath was coming in sobs. “My sister. My sister and that horrible carnival.” She choked.

Cabal cleared his throat. “We had time for a brief chat before you arrived, Miss Barrow, Soanes. Miss Carr’s sister was one of my…” Cabal groped for a noun, “customers. They lived near the carnival’s previous stop.”

Hetty wiped a palm dry and returned it to stabilizing her gun hand. “And you stole her soul!”

“In point of fact, I bought it. But I will not quibble definitions with you. I am not proud of the practice.”

Tears ran down Hildy’s face. “And she went away to the city, and she was never the same again. My little sister, Joan. She was dead before the year was out, and the police said it was a knife fight and some good for nothing man, but it was your fault. You did it.” 

The woman was trembling with grief and fury and with the weight of the weapon. She might pull the trigger by accident before she did it intentionally. Cabal’s ear was itching, but he didn't dare move. “I remember her. Joan, you say. Black and white striped dress, hair of your colour. She was there with a friend.”

“She was supposed to take me. Mother wanted her to. But Joanie’d bought the tickets herself, and she said she'd take who she liked and….” Hildy’s breath ran out on a sob. “I'd have stopped her.”

She had been young, ambitiously dressed. Hard. He'd appreciated the simplicity of the transaction. “She wanted to get away from her family. From her home. She wanted to look important. I gave her the money to do it.” 

He considered his next words carefully. “I am reluctant to overlook your actions. They have troubled Miss Barrow, destroyed her property, and endangered her person as well as my own. But considering only your sister, I will say that you appear to love her a great deal more than she loved you. You deserved better than her. And she, I admit, deserved better than me and the trade I was peddling.”

“If I had not dealt with her, she would have found another way to her goal: but not at the confirmed forfeiture of her soul, or the ill-fortune that accompanies such deals. She might have had time to outgrow her coldness and impatience with her family. Others have. I did not kill her. I did not steal her soul. But I am culpable. You have my sincere and unreserved regrets for the part I played.”

“I don't care.” She sighted along the barrel.

Leonie had almost worked Cabal’s switchblade free of her reticule. “Don’t.” Her voice was almost steady. “Don't. I'm begging you. He's sorry. He has changed. You have no idea.” 

“And you learned this while cheating on Tom, did you? Oh, I know. I heard.” Tom shifted uncomfortably. Hildy continued. “You're a fine character witness for anyone, Leonie Barrow. Whoring around with this sort of man.” Cabal’s eyes narrowed at the slur. So much for honest repentance; he didn't know why he'd taken the time.

“Hildy,” Leonie repeated the name. She had to build a connection somehow. “You’re in trouble. If you shoot Johannes, you’ll have to kill all of us. I don’t think Tom would let you get away with it either.” She prayed she was right. 

“I didn’t want to kill Tom.” Hildy’s voice shook again. “But you were getting suspicious, weren’t you?” She turned her eyes to him. “You saw the hoof prints at the fire. You knew I’d been out riding. I even think….” She choked back tears again. “I think you invited me tonight because you were suspicious? Weren’t you, love?”

“I was worried about you, Hildy.” Tom’s voice rumbled calm and low. “You don’t have to kill me, d’you see?” Hildy’s eyes were drawn to his face. “You don’t have to kill anyone.” 

Her face set. “Yes I do. I will. I was only planning to kill him,” she twitched her chin at Cabal, “but I can make this work. Half the town is talking about you three. People will be shocked if you all wind up dead, but they’ll have a story ready. I would kill half of Penlow if I knew it would end this devil. I’d thank God for the chance.” 

Tom was horrified. “Hildy, hear what you’re…”

Leonie didn’t hear Tom. When had she made up her mind about Cabal? Because she had. Not wake up with him tomorrow? Not argue armaments with him over tea? Not care for him when he was sick, plague him when he was well? It was ludicrous. Of course she feared him being killed, but had some part of her thought she could keep Johannes alive by pushing him away?

Leonie whipped a shoe along the ground. It wasn’t aimed at Hildy, but her eyes tracked it for a moment, struggling to make it out in the dim light. 

Something touched Hildy’s throat, and she instinctively stepped back into a female body. Leonie! The cold thing touched her neck again: a knife. 

A voice, in her ear: “Hildy, love, you're going to drop the gun. You're going to lie down on the ground, and wait for Chris and George to take you down to the station.” It was the gentle, reasonable tone of a social worker giving you the date of your execution. “Because if you don't, I'm going to push this knife through your carotid artery. I'm willing to bet you won't get a straight shot off. On dad’s grave, I will do it if I have to.” 

Tom’s mouth opened in protest, but he said nothing. Cabal had forgot the gun in watching Leonie, his knife held to Hildy’s neck. He scarcely breathed for what might come from her lips next. 

Her voice turned cold. “And if you shoot Johannes first, you'd better enjoy hell before I get there, Hildy, because as God is my witness, Lucifer will be a bloody picnic next to me.” Blood seeped from Hildy’s neck. He did keep his blades sharp. 

There was a painful hope dawning in his chest, as inescapable and radiative as nuclear fire. 

“I’m not scared of you, Leonie Barrow.” Hildy sighted along the gun.

Leonie’s arm moved in a blur. She nailed the blade through Hildy’s dress and into her thigh, just above the kneecap. Hildy cried out and bent over; the gun went off as Cabal threw himself off the bench at an angle and Tom charged in. 

Cabal heard cries, Tom’s and Hildy’s and Leonie's, as he rolled awkwardly and came up into a crouch. His heart seized at the gunshot. He couldn't make out the action for a moment; it was a swirl of dresses and suit-clad limbs: Tom cried out, and a moment later he must have grasped the gun, because he cast it aside. When the confusion cleared, Tom was clutching his bicep, and Hildy was lying limp and face-down on the flags with Leonie’s skinned knee pressing into her back. Leonie was unmarked. Tom had been shot. Cabal breathed.

He would have felt more secure in possession of the gun, but the gesture might have been unnecessarily polarising. Better to let Leonie deal with the farmer and keep his fingerprints off the weapon. 

"Could someone loan me a cravat?” She glanced at Cabal. His matched the suit. “Tom?

Tom stirred from his reverie. He watched the gentle, kind woman he had loved rifle through Hildy’s pockets looking for more weapons while crushing the apparently unconscious woman into the paving stones. 

“You’re hurting her.” Tom’s voice was confused rather than angry. “We need to bandage that wound.” 

“I’m a little more worried about her trying to kill us, Tom. She’ll be fine. I’m going to stay right here until I have her tied up.”

“But she’s bleeding!”

Leonie checked. “Not much. I'd like to have your cravat and maybe your belt, please. Then you’d better sit down on that bench until help gets here. Bullet wounds aren't pleasant, and you might fall over once shock sets in.”

He complied dumbly, giving her the cravat, which went to secure Hildy’s hands behind her; he tried to unbuckle his belt before remembering he was wearing braces. 

“Oh. Well. You won't have to hold her long. They’ll be searching the grounds to find out where the shot came from. We'll have Chris and George here in a few minutes.” Leonie stood, wincing at her sore knees. 

“If they can find us in the dark.”

“Was that you, Cabal?”

“I believe it was part of Miss Carr’s plan to cover her retreat back to the house.”

Blood had soaked through Soanes' sleeve around the bullet wound. Cabal found it doubly agreeable that Hildy had incriminated herself in a manner he found personally satisfying. Some of Cabal's pleasure showed on his face. Tom grunted to Leonie, “what will happen when I tell them all about that bastard there?”

Leonie glanced at Cabal. “That's his lookout. He’ll be far away by the time they start looking, and not easy to find. But Tom… I’ve no right to ask this, but can you give Mr. Cabal twenty-four hours? It's a lot to ask, I know.” She added no arguments, no inducements; just looked at him.

Tom looked hard at Leonie, debating the request. A corner of his mouth lifted. “It’ll take Chris that long to find his notebook. Fine. Since you asked it.” 

Leonie smiled. She walked over to Tom and hugged him. Cabal felt a chill.

“Kit, you wouldn't have, really…. With the knife. Those things you said.”

Leonie had a small, tired smile. “Dad was a good man. But when he was a young copper and lived with his mum, he was followed home by two bigger men who wanted to threaten her and scare him. He beat them to a paste. You didn't come after his family.” 

Cabal frowned. “In this analogy, I am your grandmother?” 

“Actually, if they'd got as far as gran, they might have had a surprise. She’d grown up in the city, and she kept a bread knife handy for ’rough sorts.’“

She patted Tom’s arm. “Come on, Cabal, we’re leaving.” They left Tom there, one arm shot through, with a would-be murderess tied up at his feet.

***

Mr. Dent was in the library having a desperate conference with his staff. The residents of Penlow were barely drinking; vast supplies of champagne, wine, and liquor had been laid in, and an enormous bowl of gin punch prepared, but his good neighbours had barely touched the glasses already in circulation. Instead, his guests gently enquired after tea or lemonade, and the glasses that had been distributed were used for a single polite toast before being abandoned on side-tables. Mr. Dent was in despair.

One of his guests, the chap in the good jacket, walked in from the terrace. Mr. Dent made hostly noises at this wayward soul. “Hope you're enjoying yourself. Do you need….” The man ignored him, squeezed behind the buffet table, scanned the shelf for a moment, and removed a particular book. Eccentric behaviour. Still, Mr. Dent would by no means restrict this bookish fellow’s enthusiasms. “Help yourself, my dear fellow. We're not all dancers. Have a glass of wine.” The blond man seemed to notice him for the first time, nodded his thanks, tucked the book under his arm, and left again through the terrace doors.

Leonie stared at Cabal as he left the house and walked towards her. There was an economical grace to his movements, or maybe, suggested an amused part of her brain, she was pitifully besotted. 

He looked cool and calm. He looked like he'd never thought, let alone uttered those burning words. She was a fragile container of something dangerous, a light or heat or liquid; if she opened her mouth or if he touched her it would come pouring out, and there would be no stopping it. There was already no stopping it. When it escaped, it would change everything.

He joined her and they walked towards the roadster. She just wanted one more moment to collect herself, one more instant to…

“So, you are arranging my departure.”

She loved how his accent caught at the edges of words. “Penlow is dangerous for you again.” She was still wearing one smudged, scuffed glove. She took it off.

He nodded. “Will I see you again?” She tried to find emotion in his tone, couldn’t. She knew it was there, but she wished she could hear it.

“Well. You see.” She twisted the glove in her hands. “I'm leaving with you. If that invitation still holds?” She was shaking. It was happening; he would see it any moment now. She was staring at the ground. She saw the book drop to the grass. She dared to raise her eyes to his face. 

Cabal missed a breath. He stopped walking. He could only find the most basic words. Did that mean she…? “Yes. It does.” He tried to think, gave up. “Tell me what is happening.”

“I think I'm ‘going on the lam’. You’ll have to tell me if I'm doing it right; it's my first time.” She tried for an insouciant smile. She suspected it looked deranged. “When do we start?” 

There was a stunned silence, like the pause after an explosion. 

“Start what?” he croaked.

“This.” Leonie indicated the air between herself and Cabal. She looked away.

Oddly, that cryptic gesture was perfectly clear. That empty space was his fixation, too. He took half a breath, a whole breath, made himself exhale. He took a controlled breath and spoke. “Now.” He was certain. “We absolutely start that now.” 

He raised his arms, to embrace her, she thought, but he put his hands on her shoulders and held her away. “Say it.”

“Say what?” She teased him with a half-smile that hid her fear.

He snorted. “You're a nightmare. An utter nightmare. I don't know what I was thinking. I should leave you in Penlow; you are going to wear me to a filament within weeks.”

“But you can't; I love you.” She sighed. “If you tried to leave me behind, I'd chase after you. I'd show up at your table in the dining car. If you sent me away then, you’d find me in your bed after you brushed your teeth.”

“Would I?” His mouth was trying to curve.

“You would,” she assured him. “I'd stake out dangerous libraries, waiting for you to arrive with a shopping list. You’d arrive at the vampire’s lair and find me arguing cricket with him in the parlour. I'd stake him for you, of course.” Cabal lifted an eyebrow. Vampires were very hard to kill. “Horst would help,” she admitted. “You would find trails of lemon biscuits that end in my arms. You’d come home to find me sitting on your step with a valise and a gun and a hopeful expression. You really would.” It had started as a joke, but now she wasn't sure. 

His eyes closed for a moment. She said she loved him. And he was not unmoved by the idea of her sneaking into his railway berth. Still, he held her away. “Tell me why.” 

"Why? I don’t understand.”

His eyes were keen on her in the dim light. “Why do you love me?” 

She was at a loss. “There wasn't an entrance exam.” There were reasons, but they would sound pale and insufficient: his intelligence, his bravery, how far he had come. His loyalty. His cold, defended heart, and what lay inside it. She just _did_ , blast it. She couldn’t help it. She loved every finger’s-breadth of him, from his head to his toes, because she always had. What did he really want to know?

“I love you because you are loveable, Johannes.” And that was right, somehow. It found the nerve and touched it, and the strain left his face and was replaced with such longing and hope she couldn't look at it. He dropped her shoulders and she took him in a tight embrace. 

It was long and quiet and precious. It was some time before Leonie added, muffled by his shoulder, “of course, it doesn't hurt that I've discovered you're some kind of sexual savant.”

“And I expect your new persona of merciless killer will prove useful in my researches, now that I have a few scruples,” he murmured into her hair. He broke the embrace. There were raised voices in the garden. He picked up the book. He felt something in his pocket and paused.

“Here.” He handed her four pearl buttons and a discarded glove. “We will be wanting these again.” He set off across the lawn towards her car.

“The dress is a disaster. I doubt the blood will come out.”

“We will find you another. And we will want the gloves.”

Leonie smiled slowly. The comment threatened to hang in the air longer than Cabal was comfortable with. “Miss Carr was slow to pull the trigger. A really competent person would have had us all dead within a minute.”

Leonie lost her smile. “Once she killed us, she'd have had to kill Tom. It made her wait. I think she would have shot you eventually. And then….”

Cabal coughed. “You would have been obliged to revenge my death. At some length, apparently.”

Leonie had meant every word of it, but the memory of saying it out loud made her uncomfortable. “I shocked Tom. You know, I am sick and tired of people talking as if dad was a plaster saint. He'd have cheerfully shot you three times that I remember.”

Cabal was surprised. “Really? Once, perhaps, but three times?”

“Oh yes. Dad loathed you.”

He frowned. He couldn’t tell if she was joking. “I had thought… a certain grudging respect….”

“No, I'd say it was hatred. If there's one mercy, it's that he wouldn't have wanted to live to see his daughter do this.” She caught his elbow. She pulled him so close she could feel the warmth of him, and he pressed closer eagerly. The next step was easier from the height of the dancing shoes. 

He could fall forever into the softness of her kiss. She wanted him, despite the mistakes, despite the practicalities, despite the crimes he didn't regret. He doubted he would ever find a better moment, though he didn't have the ring. He whispered it into her ear before he could be afraid. “Will you be my wife?”

There were lights in the garden now, and a general exodus of the Penlow citizenry from the ballroom. Leonie glanced back. Her voice was clipped and practical. “One crisis at a time, my love.” He was about to argue; the endearment sank in. He was surprised. He looked down at his feet and laughed. He smiled. He looked up to see her answering smile, shy and delighted.


	19. Let us go then, you and I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sweet bit at the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the coven, the Cabal Cabal.

The Man Under The Bed

The man under the bed   
The man who has been there for years waiting   
The man who waits for my floating bare foot   
The man who is silent as dustballs riding the darkness   
The man whose breath is the breathing of small white butterflies   
The man whose breathing I hear when I pick up the phone   
The man in the mirror whose breath blackens silver   
The boneman in closets who rattles the mothballs   
The man at the end of the end of the line 

I met him tonight I always meet him   
[…]  
For years he has waited to drag me down   
& now he tells me   
he has only waited to take me home   
We waltz through the street like death & the maiden   
We float through the wall of the wall of my room[…].

-Erica Jong

 

A wet-campfire smell pervaded the ground floor of her house. Leonie shut the front door behind her. There: she might have bought them some peace before the police came calling. 

 

Johannes Cabal was in the parlour with a journal on his lap, but he hadn’t been reading it. His eyes met hers the moment she came through the door, and she felt a besotted smile spread over her face. Look at him. It was Cabal, Johannes, rather, and he had undone the top button of his shirt in a wanton display of skin.

She sat by him and took his hand. The bubble of joy in her stomach still blossomed up into that ridiculous smile. His expression was serious, but his blue-grey gaze pierced her, and something about that look, at this proximity, made her cheeks warm. They were going to have such fun.

There was a great deal they could be doing right now. There were years to catch up on and recent days to discuss, and part of her wanted to climb onto his lap immediately and find out how tight those trousers were and if the buttonholes on the vest were still stiff and new - but she also wanted a moment. She wanted one quiet minute to watch him breathe, to hold his hand and sit on the couch in her childhood home with him, before everything changed again. She wanted that and a cup of tea. “Tea?” 

His thumb brushed her knuckle. Johannes’ buttons climbed her to-do list. “You do not have a kitchen.”

She had missed his voice so much. “But I do have a camp stove. From Mr. Wilson.”

“Then, yes.” He looked surprised at himself. “I would like that.”

They had tea and cheese and biscuits. Small things spoke for them. He fixed her cup of tea while she pared the rind from the cheese. She brought napkins from the sideboard, because she knew he abominated crumbs. When they were done, she sat back on the couch, put her head on his shoulder, and sighed. She felt his lips press her hair, and he pulled her close. His chest rose and fell deeply, once. 

 

Kissing her hair was like breathing: a pleasure only comprehensible by someone who’d had to go without. He started to raise her hand to his lips and stopped halfway. He stood. “Come.”

“Where?” 

“Upstairs. You were bleeding on the cheese. You still keep first aid supplies in the bathroom?” 

She almost refused the help from habit. “Oh, you don’t need… thank you.” 

Upstairs, she perched on the edge of the tub. He shrugged out of the jacket, hung it on a hook, and rolled back his sleeves. Water splashed into the basin as he lathered his hands. Cabal was wiry, she thought, even after years at the university. Tough, flat muscle you wouldn't know was there until you got his shirt off. She remembered how that scattering of blond hair had felt under her clutching, roaming hands. He turned to dry his hands on a fresh towel and caught her staring. Leering, really. 

“Is there something the matter?” He dried his hands scrupulously.

“No. Ahem.” He knelt on the tile, set out his supplies, and cleaned and sticking-plastered a knee. “You never used to want to do this. I had to bandage my own back once.” 

“It was not,” he swabbed gravel delicately from a scrape, “a lack of inclination. My irritation was feigned.”

“You were very convincing.”

“It was necessary. Aside from my own reasons, I thought you would hit me if you knew.” His brow wrinkled in the centre and he shook his head slightly. "If I betrayed the state I was in. Feel revolted or betrayed.”

“I wouldn't have. Known. Or felt that way.” Would she have seen the faint flush, the tremor in his hands? He brushed a kiss over the last bandage, so lightly it didn’t sting. 

He left his head bent over her hand for a moment. He cleared his throat and packed away the bandages and tape. He picked irritability at a bit of adhesive sticking to his trousers, and it suddenly seemed so natural to touch him. She extended her hand; he saw it, stilled, waited. She hesitantly caressed his forehead, ran her nails through the fine hair at his temple. His eyes shut, and he inclined into her touch. 

She pulled him gently to his knees so she could print kisses along his forehead and cheek. She kissed his eyebrows and the soft skin at the corners of his eyes. She rested her forehead against his and caressed his cheek, the angle of his jaw. She let herself be openly tender with Johannes Cabal. 

She'd felt it before, felt it often. She'd hidden it, bullying and mocking him into sleeping, eating, caring for himself or - rarely - letting her care for him. It was, she had thought, the only way he'd ever be able to accept it. 

Even now, she expected him to fix her with steely eyes and ask her what she thought she was doing: but no, he softened under her hands. He pressed gently into her kisses. He held still while she explored him with her lips and fingertips. It was like reaching into a fire, she thought, and not being burned. Just warmth and light. Greatly daring, she whispered, trying to believe it, “my Johannes.” 

“Yes.” He would tell her again and again, until she believed it. It confused him, how tentative she looked, how happy. Why had it never occurred to him that she was frightened, too? “I am yours.” She smiled shyly, unsure as Leonie was never unsure. The light was gentle amber on her skin and hair. He thought he could remember every time he had held her in his arms, exclusive of life-threatening situations.

She threw her arms around his neck and embraced him so impetuously she lost her perch on the tub and overbalanced them. They wound up on the floor. “Ow. My _bloody_ knees.”

Cabal helped her up. “If you hadn’t tried to hurl yourself between me and a gun, you wouldn’t be inconvenienced.”

“Ah. Yes.” She’d hoped he hadn’t noticed that. “Tom tripped me. It was a dignified, if rapid, walk before that.” 

“It was a terrible idea regardless of velocity. She might have shot you from sheer surprise. Or me.” His arm tightened. 

“It wasn’t.” She cut herself off, then resumed the sentence with an effort. “It wasn’t exactly an _idea_. I didn’t think about it, I just did it. You’ve done it too,” she added defensively.

“I have not.”

“You did. In Twiccian’s lair, at the end.”

“Oh. I suppose so. The parallel is inexact: he didn't have a gun.”

“No, you’re right, it shouldn’t count.”

He was slow to realize she was teasing him. Too late; she had seen it, and she laughed. He didn’t mind this laughter, and then she kissed him in the laugh, and he found himself smiling and trying to kiss her anyway. He felt giddy, like he wasn’t getting enough air - but this was real, all of it. Embracing Leonie Barrow in her bathroom and being permitted to kiss her temple gently and her leaning on him. A warm drop fell on his hand. 

“Are you weeping?” He bent down a few inches to look at her lowered face. 

“No! Well. Not to say weeping.”

“Are you all right?” 

“Yes, I am. Though that’s a pitiful understatement. It’s just…. I didn’t know you could be like this. You’re…” she couldn’t call Johannes Cabal sweet, at least not so soon. “Nice,” she finished lamely.

He didn’t have an answer for that. “But you like it.”

She framed his face with her hands. “I love it. I love you.”

Of course, there was more embracing after that, and more kisses, and possibly some murmured bilingual endearments. Leonie felt that a more suitable ambiance was called for than the bathroom, and they removed to her bedroom. 

 

This room was the farthest point from the kitchen, and it barely smelled of smoke at all. The colours were mellow and quiet: the waxed wood of the bedstead, the well-washed bedclothes, the faded rug. Cabal would have felt alien here, except for Leonie in his arms, warm and soft. Her hair tumbled over her bare shoulders, and her legs were aswim in crinoline and skirt. Reluctantly, he kissed her forehead softly and disengaged himself from her. 

“You will want your rest. I will see you in the morning.” He wanted her again, of course. He imagined taking her by slow, soft degrees until all gentleness fled and it was fierce. _He knew he couldn't break her._

“Johannes? You want to leave?” Her perplexity was clear.

“No.” He did not want to be farther than arm’s reach from her, not for days or weeks. “But you are tired. There has been arson and violence. You will wish privacy to rest and think. ” He felt foolish as he said it. Leonie took arson and violence in stride. There were other things that were harder to say. She might want time to think about leaving. About changing her life. 

“I think I'd rather have the person I love best with me tonight. Especially if he’d like to stay, too.”

A breath’s-space of incomprehension and then Cabal’s face flushed and his vision blurred. Oh. That was he. He was the person she loved best.

“Johannes?” 

“I can stay.” That wasn’t enough. “I would like to stay.”

“Good.” 

 

Still. An invitation to keep her company, console her, did not mean intimacy. He kept his embrace fond, and he did not allow his hands to roam. Hers did some roaming, perhaps innocently. It wasn’t long before she started on his waistcoat buttons. 

“Thank heavens this wasn’t damaged.”

“It is only a suit.”

Surprise and offence crowned Leonie’s features. “It is not. It is a beautiful suit.” She stroked the fabric, sending goosebumps down his flank. “It’s the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen you wear. It make you look like one of the handsomer statues down at the British Museum. I wanted to peel it off you the moment you put it on.”

“Oh. Really?” If Leonie hadn’t been so engaged in fulfilling her fantasy, she might have noticed that Cabal’s tone was more tense than shy.

“Really and truly,” she said absently, moving on to his shirt buttons. A mist of sweat formed on his brow. 

“Are you quite comfortable? Perhaps you wish to prepare for bed, and I will do the same.” Oh no, in what? He had not travelled with pyjamas. 

“You’re right, I’m destroying my pleats. Would you help with the buttons again?” She disengaged herself from him and stood, looking over her shoulder. A more perceptive man would have noticed the disingenuous cast to her expression.

 

He unbuttoned her, at some personal cost. 

 

He faced the door while she rustled and swished. Cabal had learned, at last, that some thoughts were better poorly worded than unsaid. “I can stay with you tonight simply as a friend,” he blurted. He heard her pause. “Although that would be easier if you put on some clothing.” Her footsteps crossed the room, and she stepped in front of him, wearing, blast, the brown housecoat.

“If this is you saying you don’t want to, that’s fine, it really is.” She spoke quietly, and she was evidently thinking her words through before she spoke. “But if this is you trying to protect me, or observing etiquette not practiced since Moses was a baby, then I would rather have lots of sex, please.”

 

He almost made a farcical wheezing noise at that, but he swallowed it. Irritation rose; _he was trying to do the right thing_. “It isn’t about etiquette. You are tired. I want to care for you.” He smoothed her hair back with his hands. He struggled with his embarrassment. “You deserve a period of courtship. For the rest - knowing that you hold me in affection is enough.”

Her face changed as he spoke, sweetness and perplexity. “That’s endearing. And a bit boneheaded, Cabal. Johannes. I am tired. But,” she raised her hands to frame his dear frowning face, “I am not very tired. And I am not conflicted. And ten years of knowing each other should be sedate enough for anyone, even if I’m not sure we could call it a courtship. Feel free to court me.” The loveliest, sweetest smile spread over her face. “I would like that. But I think we can also get back into that bed and see what happens, don’t you?” She raised her face to his. This close, he could feel her back straighten, feel her aspire up to his lips. He loved every bit of proof that she wanted him. 

When he broke away she was nowhere near done, and she pulled him back. He made a sound of relief and held her to him, hard, kissing until her lips were soft and full with it. 

“Cabal?”

“Johannes,” he corrected her. He loved the sound of her saying it. Even her English accent pleased him.

“Johannes.” She touched his lips. He was smiling, he realised, and sobered by habit. 

 

He lay down on the bed, self-conscious now, and his expression was forbidding. Leonie knew him too well to be put off. She tucked herself next to his chest and undid his top button idly. “So, out with it. How long have you loved me?”

He glanced at her, mildly appalled. There should be a warning before those words were said aloud. “I realised it while you were with Jack. It was,” he tried to restrain his frankness; _it nearly caused a mental breakdown_ was not the thing to say just now, “a difficult realisation at first.”

Leonie thought. Her fling with Jack had been sweet but short. “I thought you were at the Antarctic around then, on that research ship.” 

He cleared his throat. “I was, for the most part.”

“Did - did you go because…?”

“Yes.”

She paused in her apparently absent-minded unbuttoning. “I suddenly feel like I’ve handled the last several days rather well.” At least she hadn’t run away and spent three months bobbing in the Amundsen Sea.

Cabal snorted.

“What?”

“I practically had to beat you with a rubber hose to make you admit that you…. To make you admit it. How long have…” _you loved me_? 

“It's difficult to date. Every time I thought about it, I felt ill, so I tried not to.”

“You flatter me.” But he said it without heat. 

“I’ve loved you since…” a series of pictures flitted by her eyes. Cabal, younger, falling off the Princess Hortense. Cabal handing her a tiny handgun. Cabal kneeling by the sunken glass coffin. You're not a monster. Cabal finding her, holding her through a cold night. A terrible hour in Leng that had tested both of them sorely. “A bloody long time, that's how long. Definitely longer than you've loved me.”

“Possibly.”

She shook her head. She took his hand and lifted it in both of hers. His hand. The straying pattern of veins and tendons on its back. His long fingers, spattered with scars from acid and broken glass. His broad fingernails, carefully trimmed. The tender texture of the skin between forefinger and thumb. The creases of his palm. 

His longest finger was bent just a little out of true, as if it had been broken and reset. There was a tiny snarl under the nail of his little finger, an old scar that made the edge of the nail bed uneven. Leonie could have drawn it from memory: would remember it for the rest of her life. And it was only one hand. She kissed it and returned it to him. She kissed his cheek.

“You should have more smile lines by your age, Cabal.”

“Your fault then. You have given me every wrinkle I possess. Work harder.”

Her fingers moved gently beneath his undershirt. She traced a path on his flank, feeling the textures of smooth and scarred skin. He felt sparks of sensation and numbness. He shivered. “It feels strange when you do that.” 

“Is it bad?”

“No. Nothing you do is unpleasant. Do it again.”

She did, slowly. He closed his eyes, trying to follow the path of her touch as she crossed areas of nerve damage, feeling the prickle of half-healed skin. 

The sensation abruptly became softer and yet infinitely more acute, and his eyes flew open to see her lips on him in an open-mouthed kiss. 

_Slow, this time_ he reminded himself, _and then fierce._ He turned to face her, then moved over her. Her smile widened wickedly, and she took his hips in her hands.

***

That encounter required some washing afterwards, and there was a pleasant interval in the bathroom with sponges and incoherent exclamations and grateful kisses. She tied the belt of his housecoat for him, then untied it again, the better to embrace him beneath it.

It was strange, seeing him naked. Strange seeing him without his customary irritable shell. Once she would have sworn it was not a shell, that the irritation and chill went down to his core, as lesser mortals are made of flesh or as a tree is made of wood. 

When they were in bed again, he moved his head accommodatingly so she could slip an arm between his neck and the pillow. She linked her fingers together on his far shoulder and squeezed him. “Tell me: why were you so ghastly when you arrived? I thought someone had left a Johannes Cabal-shaped automaton on my front step and forgot to wind it.”

She got a sour look for the description. “I wasn’t sure you would speak to me. I wasn’t sure you would care I was alive. As it was, I couldn’t tell what you felt. You did not seem happy to see me, but you did not seem unmoved.”

“Mmf. I was definitely moved. I was happy to see you. Deep down.”

“Really.”

“Very deep. Extremely deep down, I was thrilled, believe me.” 

“Were you.”

“Wasn’t I enthusiastic enough just now?”

“You were.’ He softened. “You were very enthusiastic.” He put his arm around her, and she felt him shiver at the memory, and she grinned. 

Sleep had to come sooner or later. Dawn was coming, flooding over the continents, and they were fuzzy with fatigue. They fell silent.

He felt her body relax into sleep. Her embrace slackened, then tightened, then relaxed a millimetre further. Her head relaxed more completely into his shoulder. The angle of her back softened, caught itself, and softened again. Finally, she was slumped bonelessly against him. Two breaths, three, and a thready snore issued from her throat. It was enchanting. Cabal would have severed his arm rather than disturb her. 

He had missed her so much. 

A hundred times he had imagined leaving Penlow alone, with the knowledge that Leonie had refused him, or that she loved him, but not enough. Instead, there was this. He slept. 

***

Morning broke still and golden over Penlow. It glowed through Leonie’s bedroom curtains, first palely, then with blinding force. The two in the bed, wrapped in a soft, ripped quilt and each other, slept peacefully. They awoke slowly, a piece at a time, a vague sense of wellbeing resolving into the startling remembrance of their current situation.

“Good morning, Johannes.” She kissed his cheek. He ran his fingertips over the edge of the sheet covering her chest and shoulder. He looked surprised, she thought. “Would you mind moving? My arm is trapped, but I’m hoping we won’t have to amputate. Ow. Ow.” Sleeping with her arms wrapped around him had been very romantic, but she was paying for it with pins-and-needles.

She sat up and put a foot on the floor, but an arm wound around her waist and dragged her back under the covers.

“No, _Fräulein_.” Experience from two days ago suggested that no good came of Leonie leaving this bed.

“But breakfast!”

He put an elbow on either side of her, caging her in. “Breakfast is unnecessary.”

“Herr Cabal, I know you've had a shock, but under this roof we don't speak about breakfast that way. Let me go, I have a call of nature.”

“Insufficient.”

“Cabal!” It didn't sound as stern as she meant it to, but he was so lovely in the morning light. His lips were traveling slowly down the fall of her shoulder to her breast, and she felt very interested in what would happen when he got there. But she did need to use the toilet. “I will come back. I swear it on all I hold dear.”

He stopped slowly. “We will not have a repeat of last time.”

“We absolutely will not.” She pulled him down to her. “What a disaster.” She carded her fingers through his hair. “I thought you were having a fling with me. Getting it out of your system. And there I was, horribly in love with you.” 

“You could have mentioned that.” So could he, of course.

“Yes. But that's part of the reason I alternated between shouting at you and tearing your trousers off.” She sighed. “The Antarctic, then?”

“There was time to think.” About shouting, and tearing clothing off. “And no chance I would post you a foolish letter.” Though no protections against writing them. Several had been posted into the southern oceans.

She tapped his side, and he moved to her side, arm still encircling her. She tangled her legs with his and rested her head near him, her plan of leaving temporarily delayed. “ You know, I used to make myself wait before opening your letters, even though I knew they'd just be chess moves. Sometimes you would write something about your house or the gardens, and until I'd opened it, it felt like you were there in the room with me. A little bit of you, there on my writing desk.”

He'd done the same thing, he realised. He’d made it a practice to leave her letters - sometimes informative, sometimes almost as terse as his - until after his work day. It was a question of work before play, of course, but the unopened envelopes had glowed with her presence. He had delayed opening them until after he had eaten, after he had bathed, until the moment he could avoid it no longer and he took up the letter opener. 

“Sometimes,’ he offered, “I would read a book I'd seen on your shelves, just to wonder what you thought of it, to approve or disapprove your taste.” He stroked her head where it lay by his side.

“Hmph. You would. All right, here's another one. I never smiled when you dropped in on me out of nowhere.” She squeezed him. “I felt like it would scare you off, I suppose, or that you might see how happy I was to see you. We couldn't have that, of course.”

The morning went gently. They lingered in bed, talking in quiet voices of things that were past and of things they might do. He kissed her sweet summer freckles. 

There was a knock at the front door at nine, and Cabal tried to jump out of bed, but Leonie grappled him and held him in place, giggling uncontrollably. As they listened, the neighbours she’d spoken with last night chastised the officer for “bothering Leonie after everything she’d been through this week.” Mention was made of her being “Frank Barrow’s daughter.” No doubt, they said, she’d visit the police station herself as soon as she felt ready.

The man left. Cabal would _never_ understand Penlow-on-Thurse.

***

Leonie threw on her oldest nightgown and packed her bags while Cabal bathed. 

She would travel in the comfortable old suit she’d laid out on the bed. She wouldn’t take the trunk; she might need to run. She put a few changes of clothing in the valise. She would send for the rest of it when they were settled somewhere. If they settled. And her toothbrush and cold cream and, oh yes, her gun. 

There was a spot in the corner for something non-essential. She picked up her mother’s brushes, but her eye fell on the tiny oil lamp her father had lit every night, because he loved its light best. Her books. The notes for her new article. She was standing in the middle of the room when Cabal entered. 

She put the brushes back on the vanity. His eyes followed the action. He followed her to the guest bedroom, where she opened a drawer. 

He cleared his throat. “You can have the rest of it packed and sent when we have settled on a base of operations.” A home, he meant. He should have had a home to offer her. “I could go on now and contact you when I have made arrangements. For a house.” The offer felt meagre, cold. His gaze moved around the room without settling on anything. 

“Is there something the matter?”

“Is there?” He echoed the question back at her.

She was even more confused. “Why, what do you think is wrong?”

He measured her with his eyes. “Do you truly want to leave here?” 

She straightened the extra linens on the shelf. “I can’t picture you living here.” If Cabal settled in Penlow, rivers would start flowing uphill and cats would mate with dogs. “I do love it. The village, but especially this house. It ties me to my to my mother and dad, and I still miss them both. And,” and she stopped until he held her eyes. “I would burn it down right now if it was the only way I could leave with you.”

“Do not. Insurance paperwork is a minor hell of its own.”

“They’re only things, Johannes. I love you.” she said. 

“I have not changed, you know.’ His voice was sharp. “Not in essentials.” 

She her lips had an odd little smile. “I’d be disappointed if you had. I know exactly what I’m getting into, my boy.”

He didn’t answer directly, but his shoulders straightened. Tension ebbed from the room’s silence. He looked around the guest room. “This was your bedroom, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

“When we met. And all those years after.” So many nights he had left his lab, the night’s work done, and the image of her would possess him: Leonie sleeping sweetly; or lying awake, warm and restless; or God help him, desiring….

A smile kindled on her face. “Yes, all those years. When I would lie awake wondering if you were working or… whoop!”

He hitched his arms around her hips and spun her onto the narrow bed. He followed her down, her arms enfolding him as he buried his face in her garment. It smelled like soap and sunlight from the garden clothesline. “And was this your bed?” he buried one hand in her hair and exposed her throat for his kisses.

“Yes, this was my bed.” Oh my. His hands on her breasts, his lips and teeth touching her through the thin fabric. She had half his buttons undone. 

She pushed her nightdress over her head, and he pushed his braces off his shoulders and attacked his cuffs. He loved the sternness of her face as she stripped him out of his clothes, as their hands fought over the edge of his undershirt, and when she won, she was so eager to get it off she scraped his face with the neckband. He was reassured.

 

**Benedick:**  
And, I pray thee now, tell me for  
which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

**Beatrice:**  
For them all together; which maintained so politic  
a state of evil that they will not admit any good  
part to intermingle with them. But for which of my  
good parts did you first suffer love for me?

**Benedick:**  
Peace! I will stop your mouth.  
I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is  
not that strange?

 

***

“Let us go then, you and I,  
     When the evening is spread out against the sky  
     Like a patient etherized upon a table;”

T. S. Eliot. “Poems.” 

The Barrow house is locked. Not sold, and not entirely abandoned. The kitchen is rebuilt, and a girl comes by to tend Frank Barrow’s garden. It is visited from time to time, but its owner lands there briefly and rarely now, waiting for the day she wants rest, or for the fading of a certain carnival from the public memory. 

The Penlow rail station closes up after tea every day of the week except Saturdays, when the mail train to London comes through around midnight, thundering its irreligious way towards the Sunday dawn. 

The station master never spoke of that night. There is a great kindness in playing blind in a small town, and if Tom Soanes didn't care to speak of her departure, then it was no-one else's business. But Leonie Barrow and her tall, pale friend - who may have been a Mister _Cabal_ \- had come into the station arm-in-arm at eleven fifty-five, breathless and flushed. They bought tickets for the passenger car. 

They ran aboard the night train like children, hand in hand. He’d heard a laugh, and he couldn’t swear it hadn’t been from him. And as the train pulled away, just before a black-gloved hand closed the curtain from within, he saw Leonie toss Cabal’s hat aside and pull him to her for a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With particular thanks to those who have given their time and expertise to this story, particularly All_I_Need, IncognitoPi, and the tremendous Miss B. My thanks to all my friends in the fandom who have endured my 'process,' i.e. all the whining. 
> 
> I let these two go with great reluctance - I feel like I'm still grabbing at their sleeves as they run off into the night. But they deserve their happy ending, and so do you.

**Author's Note:**

> Work updates, deleted scenes from old stories, reference photos, writing complaints, and other ridiculousness [here](https://cynaram.tumblr.com).


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